Lost at Sea

I had always heard the phrase "Fair Winds and Following Seas," but I had always ignored that expression, and anything to do with the sea. Today, sitting on the beach, I remembered that when I was eight, that expression was never more true than when battling winds and stormy seas took my grandfather and my oldest brother. If only they had been out on the water when the winds were fair and the seas were calm.

I was now two weeks post-Jeremy-relationship, and ironically, our breakup was because of my fear of anything to do with boats and ships; in fact, as far as he knew, I had no interest in anything nautical. The truth is, I had an absolute terror of the sea, a feeling that I had been able to successfully hide for as long as we had been together.

Jeremy and I had met more than two years ago in an adorable little book store, tucked in the rear of a huge mall. After our meeting at the bookstore, we began a two-year whirlwind romance. Jeremy was absolutely wonderful in so many ways. He was patient when I was cross, he was loving and caring during times when I was definitely unlovable, he was smart with a wonderful sense of humor, and for whatever reason, he had fallen in love with me. Of course, I had fallen in love with him that day in the bookstore, and it had simply blossomed since then. In my eyes, he was absolutely, positively perfect. Except for one issue - one very big problem.

His family loved boating. His grandfather had purchased a sailboat many years before. I'm not sure that it was really a sailboat, as he had told me that it could sleep as many as eight people. It was now his, since his grandfather has passed away previously, and he really wanted to take me out on it.

The first time he had mentioned it, I had casually changed the subject. He had not seemed to notice it, but as time went on, and he talked about it more and more, it became obvious to him that I just would not discuss it.

I come from a rather large family. I have, or perhaps I should say had, four brothers, and three sisters. My mother believed in substantially adding to the population. She was one of nine children, so truly enjoyed having a large family of her own.

My oldest brother, Ernest, was always my hero. Being almost ten years older than me, he was almost an adult when I was still a toddler.

My mother was truly a reading aficionado, but my father had brought a different mix to the family. His father, my grandfather Edmund (we always called him PapEd), had discovered the high seas, and with it, an immense love of sailing.

We were never sure how PapEd did it, but one day when I was about five years old, PapEd brought us to the marina to show us his latest acquisition ... a huge sailboat. He was as proud of that sailboat as if he had built it himself, and he never did tell us how it came to be his.

From that time on, he spent almost every spare minute on that boat. He was either cleaning it, repairing it, or sailing it. And regardless of what he was doing to the boat, he always had one of his grandchildren with him. He always told us, 'you work - you sail, no work - no sail." And of course, we all wanted to go out on the sailboat with him, so we all worked as often as we could.

Over the next three years, we spent the majority of our time at the marina. Our biggest joy came when grandfather took the sailboat out for a 'run.' He would even throw caution to the wind and take the sailboat out in bad weather. Of course, Mom would never allow him to take any of us during those times. She was terrified that something would happen, but he always called her "Nervous Nelly," and told her that he knew what he was doing.

I was about eight years old when tragedy struck. And I was the only one to see it. It was a beautiful sunny day in July, with a light wind, and small fluffy clouds traipsing across a cerulean blue sky. PapEd wanted to take the sailboat out, but Mom shook her head and said, "the air doesn't feel right PapEd. Please don't go."

"What do you know?" he said sarcastically, "you have never gone out on the boat, so how would you know? Who's with me?"

"NO!" Mom screamed at him. "You are not taking any of the kids on that boat today!"

"Ok, Ok, Ok." As he looked at all of the sad faces standing there, he could actually feel their disappointment.

"I'll go with you, PapEd," Ernie said from the back of the pack. "I agree with you, it's a great day for sailing."

Gerdy, my little sister, piped up with "Can we at least go watch down at the marina?"

Mom shook her head, and said, "I want you all to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you."

PapEd and Ernie took off for the marina, and I went out in the backyard with the rest of the clan. As I sat on the back porch, I had decided that I was going to go to the marina, even though Mom had expressly told us not to. But I wanted to see the sailboat when PapEd made it fly across the water.

I waited for a while to make sure that Mom had forgotten that we had all wanted to go to the marina. Finally, I got up and told everyone I was going to my bedroom.

I ran in the house and saw that mom was busy. I ran out the front door and down the street, heading for the marina. By the time I got there, PapEd and Ernie had the boat out in the open water. I sat down on the warm sandy beach, and before long, I was fast asleep.

All of a sudden I was instantly awake. The wind was howling around me, and the sky had turned gray with terrible lightning strikes and lots of thunder. I looked around the marina, but could not see PapEd's sailboat.

Finally I was able to see what I knew was PapEd's boat. He had always used a very special Headsail and there was only one sail that looked like his. And I could see it, a long ways out on the water. Actually, it was the only sailboat that I could see.

I kept watching, and watching. Until finally, I saw the sailboat totally turn on its side. I kept waiting for it to turn right side up again, but it never did.

I was crying, my face covered in tear tracks through the sand that was plastered on my face. I was shivering in the cold, and I just wanted to keep screaming "PapEd, Ernie, PapEd, Ernie."

Suddenly, someone was wrapping a warm blanket around me. I turned around to see my dad, and I cried out "PapEd's boat fell on its side, and now I can't see it.

My father stood up straight, looked out over the water, and said "Are you sure? Maybe you imagined it?"

"No. The wind made me cold and I woke up. When I looked out at the water, I kept seeing his boat tip over until finally it tipped all the way over and never came back up."

My dad grabbed my hand and we went running for the office at the marina. When we got inside, my dad told Noah (the man in charge of the marina office) what I had seen. Finally my dad made me go sit in the car, and it seemed like that was a good thing to do, because the marina started to get very busy with lots of people. After a long while, my dad came out and we drove home.

We went in the house, and I watched him go to my mom, put his arms around her, and put his head on her shoulder. It looked like he was crying, but that wasn't possible. I had never seen my dad cry. He was the strongest man I knew of, possibly even stronger than my hero Ernie.

My mom rounded up all of us kids and told us to go to our bedrooms. The boys shared one room, and the girls all shared another room. She told us that she would bring us some sandwiches, but that we had to be very quiet.

From the safety of our bedroom, we could hear that there were lots of people coming in and out. We were curious, but none of us dared to go back downstairs to find out what was happening.

I was peeking through the half open door of our bedroom when I saw a man in a uniform come in from outside. I recognized him as Pete, the man who was usually at the wheel of the big Coast Guard ship that came to the marina often. Mom and Dad ran to see him at the door, and I really could not understand what they were saying. I only heard a few words that I recognized. I knew when I heard him say 'Edmund,' and then a few seconds later the word 'body,' that my PapEd probably would not be coming home tonight. But the words that really scared me was when I heard him say 'Ernest' and then the word 'missing.'

It took a long while for all of us to quiet down and fall asleep. Sometime during the night, I awoke to a very bright light at the foot of my bed. As I opened my eyes, I knew two things: I was totally alone in that room, and PapEd was sitting in the middle of that bright light.

I crawled to the foot of the bed so that I could sit on his lap, and I looked up at him. He looked so different, but I could not figure out why. Later I realized that he had looked younger, and he had also looked happy.

"PapEd," I said excitedly, "when did you come home?"

He looked down at me so gently, and said "Little one, I can't come home again."

"But why can't you come home?" I cried. "We need you here."

"I know," he whispered. "But I want you to tell everyone that I am ok."

"And, where's Ernie," I asked. "Why isn't he here with you?"

"He's still with you," he said. When he realized that I didn't understand what he was saying, he said "he's still with you, but it will be a long while before you can see him again."

Finally my eyelids began to droop, and he tucked me in saying quietly, "I love you all. I will never be far away."

As I drifted back into the sleep of innocent childhood, I realized that everything my grandfather had said made absolutely no sense to me.

The next morning when I awoke, I remembered my conversation with PapEd. I could not wait to tell everyone about that conversation. I knew that I did not understand everything, but maybe someone else would.

Sitting once again on the warm sandy beach around the marina, I remembered all that had happened so many years before. PapEd had told me that Ernie was still with me, but I still did not understand.

As I stared out across the water, I could once again see PapEd's boat turning on its side and staying there.

Suddenly off in the distance, walking across the sand, I saw Jeremy. He almost seemed to be running.