hat maybe there would be a pool in the next town. There was a pool, but with the turn of events, maybe the fact was not so fortunate. First of all the pool was closed, but because her children were so hot and tired of sitting in the car the narrator begged the lifeguard to allow her children to swim. After the lifeguard consented, she dressed her children in swimming suits and then went to find a drink for herself. When she felt a mother’s intuition for her children she ran back to the pool and at first did not see her youngest daughter. Her daughter had fallen into the deep end of the pool. Although the little girl did not drown, the mother was still shaken.At this point, the narrator finally discovers what the realities of life are. She also discovers deep within herself the reason for her feelings toward her parents at the funeral of Steve Gauley.At first, the parents decide that they are lucky to have their little girl. It was just “a chain of lucky events” (Munro 469) that kept their child from drowning. The narrator begins the “could have been’s” and the if only’s” that life is full of. Dwelling on the other possibilities does not remove the reality that does exist. It is like “laying your finger on the wire to get a safe shock, feeling a bit of what it is like, then pulling back” (Munro 470). If the “what if’s” did happen the narrator realizes that her life could had been changed drastically in a matter of moments.In addition, because of the near drowning of her daughter, she understood the feelings she had toward her parents so long ago. She understood that they could “not stand between [her] and sudden death, or any kind of death” (Munro 470). The narrator understood that death was a fact and “[her parents] had made [her] and for that reason [her] death…” (Munro 470).In “Miles City, Montana” the a...
