When I was growing up, every summer seemed to include at least one trip to a place my family called Slippery Rock.

Technically, it wasn't Slippery Rock.

It was Flat Rock at Linn Run State Park in Ligonier Pennsylvania.

Nobody in my family cared.

To us, it was Slippery Rock.

If you've never been there, picture a wide sheet of smooth sandstone with cold mountain water flowing over it. It was only a few inches deep in most places, just enough to cool you off on a hot summer day. Kids climbed the rocks, splashed in the shallows, and if you found the right spot, you could slide across the smooth rock like it was nature's own waterslide into the deeper pool at the bottom.

One summer, my mother, my brother, and I headed there for the day.

My mother had settled into a lawn chair beside the stream while my brother and I played in the water.

Everything was going great.

Until it wasn't.

My brother was climbing around on the rocks when his feet suddenly disappeared out from under him.

His face hit the rock hard.

I still remember the sound.

"Mom!" I screamed.

She looked up.

Then she was moving.

I still don't know how she got across that stream.

There were wet rocks everywhere.

I don't remember her slowing down.

I don't remember her slipping.

I don't even remember her touching the water.

One second she was sitting in her lawn chair.

The next she was kneeling beside my brother.

He was probably ten or twelve years old.

She scooped him up like he weighed nothing...

...turned around...

...and somehow crossed the stream again carrying him like he was a towel.

As luck would have it, there was a dentist at Slippery Rock that day, and he had seen the whole thing happen.

He came over to us and told us to find the piece of my brother's tooth, put it in some milk, and take it with us. Apparently, that would help preserve it until a dentist could examine it.

It was one of those crazy coincidences you never expect. Out of everyone who could have been there that day, there just happened to be a dentist standing nearby.

Years later, when I watched The Matrix for the first time, I finally found the closest thing I could compare it to.

If you've ever seen the way the characters seem to glide effortlessly across impossible terrain...

That's exactly how I remember my mother that day.

We got my brother to the hospital.

Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it first looked.

He'd chipped a tooth and banged himself up pretty good, but there was no serious damage.

A trip to the dentist the next day took care of the tooth, and before long he was back to normal.

Looking back, I don't remember much about the hospital.

I don't remember much about the dentist.

What I remember...

...is my mother.

One second she was relaxing in a lawn chair beside the stream.

The next, she was somehow across the water carrying my brother like he weighed nothing.

To this day, I still don't know how she did it.

The Matrix Had Nothing on My Mother.