The Red Swimsuit
Updated: Oct 1
9/20/2026
Written by Lindsey Graser
“What do you think is going to happen, Lindsey? Someone’s just going to knock on your door and offer you a job?”
Well, that’s not kind of what happened. It's exactly what happened.
We had been in Durham for two weeks. The money I had saved from teaching swim lessons with Amelia this past summer had dried up. In passing, I mentioned to the leasing agent that I had my lifeguarding certification. He mentioned a job he used to work at, but I didn’t think much of it. Until he knocked on my door and handed me a card with the name of the pool manager.
Talk about green lights.
I followed this one and stood in that lifeguard stand every day for a week, catching the remnants of summer for everyone who had spent their days in and around the water. For them, summer was almost over. For me, it felt very much like the start of something new.
The one ace in my pocket was having this lifeguarding certification and knowing it was hard to find people this time of year. I was going to show up at just the right time. I do have a thing about feeling needed, especially during a time that is actually wrought with need.
So I was pleased when that pool closed for the summer and another opportunity came up to lifeguard for Swim for Charlie, a program equipping second-grade students across North Carolina with life-saving water safety skills. The program is named in honor of Charlie van der Horst, a physician, medical researcher, public health advocate, philanthropist, and social justice activist who dedicated much of his life to serving vulnerable populations.
The irony of that very same name wasn’t lost on me.
Sometimes the Universe has to hit you right over the head to show you the next right thing when the path ahead is anything but certain.
Because in a way, I’m a lifeguard for my own dear Charlie, too.
Another green light.
On my first day, I arrived to a sea of blue. The sky seemed to run right into the pristine water, not a ripple on the surface. Bright sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and even the chairs seemed perfectly placed. There was something about all that order and calm that settled me.
I brought the Amelia purse with me, tucked under my arm like a security blanket, pulled out my notepad and started taking notes. Where to set out the backboard. How to activate the EAP—Emergency Action Plan. Where the AED was. The first aid kit.
I was feeling pretty confident.
Until he casually mentioned the uniform.
“And you just need to wear a red swimsuit.”
Wait, what? That’s where he lost me. My stomach dropped.
Did he know that I had found exactly ONE full-coverage swimsuit fit for a 50-year-old woman? And it did NOT come in red.
I felt like a kid digging my heels into the pavement. On the outside, I was nodding, cool as a cucumber. On the inside, I was spraying a fire hose at the fire-engine red swimsuit now apparently required of me.
I looked up at the floor-to-ceiling windows and felt like a specimen cooking in a petri dish. For someone who had spent the past couple of years limiting my interactions to people and places I knew—this felt incredibly exposed.
There would be nowhere to hide.
This wasn’t like teaching lessons with Amelia and all her friends at the summer rec program.
With a fair amount of terror, I went to Dick’s and scoured the racks. There was exactly one red suit left—a skimpy red Speedo. Mild panic set in as I stood in the dressing room, looking at the woman staring back at me. She didn’t look like the strong, courageous woman who had packed up her life, loaded the Jeep, left home, and headed south hoping for something better.
But I knew she was in there somewhere.
I bought the suit anyway and immediately went home and ordered a couple more online.
Thank goodness one worked.
And then I set out to match that red suit—the one with GUARD printed across it—with where I wanted to be, mentally and physically.
I put a post on our apartment portal looking for people who wanted to walk and found them. I started walking. Then running. Going to the gym. Sitting in the sun by our pool. Swimming laps again. A friend from back home suggested I channel my inner Baywatch and start running slow-mo through the apartment, shoulders back.
Little by little, I started building back the woman who could wear that word.
My skin was getting tanner. My body was getting stronger.
I felt a little like a flower growing in exactly the right conditions. With lots of sun and water.
One day while swimming, a woman asked if she could share my lane. She had gotten the time wrong after returning from a trip in a different time zone and was completely discombobulated.
Of course I was happy to share with her. I was actually thrilled she asked to share my lane. I'd become pretty adept at staying in my own lane.
“Swimming has a way of smoothing out the wrinkles, doesn't it?” I shared with her.
"It does," she remarked with a little smile before she pushed off into the water.
Bilateral breathing. The rhythmic back and forth. The feeling of being free and, at the same time, completely held by the water.
Even the name Swim for Charlie felt like something meant for me.
Swim for Charlie.
Be strong for Charlie.
It was an honor to stand guard those two weeks.
At the end of that first week, I accompanied Charlie to a very big medical appointment.* And here I was, surrounded by people—doctors, instructors, coaches, volunteers—all working in different ways to provide care and support. It felt full circle.
When Swim for Charlie ended, I was referred to one last place that needed a guard, and I filled in for two days.
Once again, a warm welcome.
There was a very brief exchange with a woman checking in who told me they had the best BLT quesadillas. She overheard me talking with the other lifeguards about having a daughter at NC State, where she had also gone. I smiled when she told me I didn't look old enough to have a daughter in college.
Somehow, in about two minutes, it came out that Charlie and I had arrived here with a Jeep packed with our things and his IV fluids, looking for care here in the Research Triangle.
Then I had to cut the conversation short.
“Oh, you’re here to guard.”
I came out of the little check-in station, whistle in hand, heading to the stand.
“Yes,” I said, heading toward the pool—this time confidently in my red suit.
“Of course you are. You’re a guard on land and in the water.”
I smiled and pulled my sunglasses down a bit. “Indeed. Thank you for getting it.”
Later, when the grill master asked if I wanted to join them for beer and pizza after my shift, why yes.
Yes, I would.
It was the first time I had gone out since we got here.
And I ate the whole damn pizza. Except one piece that I saved to bring home to Charlie. I was teased quite a bit about that move.
I was so hungry after all the work of these new places. Showing up. Learning names. Keeping a keen eye on the pool and keeping the kids safe. Keeping the kids safe. Keeping the kids safe.
And, of course, all the work to fit into that red guard suit.
Well as it turns out, it all worked out. Charlie said I looked pretty damn great in that suit, and with that confidence and the money I earned by lifeguarding, I bought myself a sexy little black dress for $7.00 on the clearance rack, and I'm going to wear it to celebrate our third wedding anniversary next week.
And after three weeks of lifeguarding at three different pools, I think it’s time to hang up my whistle for a while.
Tomorrow, I start my next adventure.
Substitute teaching.
And because apparently the green lights aren’t quite finished with me yet, during those last two days of guarding, I met a little girl with bright blue eyes who goes to the exact elementary school where I’ll be teaching.
We chatted it up.
It had been Fun Friday at her school, and they got to throw water balloons at the principals. She was very happy to tell me all about it.
As she left, she called back to me:
“I’ll see you Monday!”
So yes, I have first-day jitters.
But I also know there is already one person in that school who knows me.
I'll be on the lookout for that sweet little familiar first grader with blonde hair and bright blue eyes who reminds me of my own little Amelia.
I got this.
*If you are interested in hearing more about Charlie's medical journey, and sharing your own, feel free to join us for our monthly "Between the Stitches" support gathering.
Comments