WARNING: If you are currently dealing with death or grief, I do not recommend you read this article at this time.
I went on a sailboat for the first time in 14 years this past weekend. I had been on many boats in the last decade plus, a carnival cruise, pontoon, catamaran, bowriders and the like, but not a moving sailboat. I decided to share this chapter as a reminder that there’s always room for new beginnings.
The grieving didn’t stop that summer. The Tuesday after my grandpa's services, I raced to our minivan after finishing summer school. My mom was in the passenger seat and my dad was driving. My mom and dad picking me up signaled immediately something was wrong. I swung open the door of the minivan to find my sister, Madeleine, patiently waiting in the second row seats and my brother, Jimmy lounging across the back. Something was very wrong. It was the height of August in Chicago, a time when everyone should be swilling rosé in the park. Except my mom who got the short end of the stick, playing chauffeur for me. I hadn’t learned how to drive yet, so she was stuck ferrying me around all summer so I could finish a set of classes to attend this particular high school. I jumped in my assigned seat and quietly shut the minivan door behind me. The car fell silent while my mom picked up her cell.
“Can you see the boat out there yet,” said Shelby, I recognized her voice even though she was speaking shakily. Shelby was one of the neighborhood moms. Her and her two boys grew up in the building next to us.
“Jim and I are just getting to Ignatius now, picking up Margaret from summer school,” said my mom. She had her blackberry pressed hard against her cheek rammed into her ear, but the volume was loud enough for the entire car to hear the other end of the line.
"Please... Please call me... Winston went down to the club half an hour ago, and..." Shelby said sobbing.
"Shelby, we don't know anything yet. We haven't heard from him. We're here for you, no matter what," my mom said calmly.
"I can't believe this is happening. I just can't,” Shelby said crying harder.
My mom remained cool and calm, as she was so talented at doing in moments of crisis or high stress for her friends. Having three children under the age of three gave her that superpower. She could handle anything with a particular kind of elegance and grace. She was the strongest, impassioned rock for the people she wanted to protect. Hard headed, stable, unmoving.
“We’re racing home right now and I will call you immediately when we step in the door,” my mom proclaimed.
“Thank you, I love you,” Shelby whispered through sobs. The phone clicked. My Dad kicked the minivan into high gear and we began to speed.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” I said.
“Margaret. Language,” said my mom. Side-eyeing me from the front passenger seat. This felt like an inadequate response to a very dire scenario.
“Something happened to Jamie,” said my Dad.
“What are you talking about?” I quipped back.
“Last night, Jamie and some friends took the boat out late and the boat is nowhere to be found,” said my mom. I had a massive crush on Jamie, even though his cousin and Shelby’s son was my first kiss, crush and technically, first boyfriend ever. Jamie was seven years older than us. He had run away from his heroin addicted parents and moved in with his grandparents who lived in the floor above our family. I would see him on elevator rides down to the lobby, at Grant Park with our families or around the Chicago Yacht Club.
Jamie was an accomplished, respected and talented sailor. He had even landed a massive scholarship to sail at a prestigious university. “They’re fine. Maybe they sailed themselves to Indiana,” I laughed. My joke was met with somber silence from Madeleine and Jimmy. Everyone was carrying a certain kind of sadness since my grandpa's services.
“There’s a search team out now looking for the boat and for Jamie. Shelby said Jamie let them know they were going to hang out on the boat last night, but she didn’t know he was actually taking it out.”
We got home, parked the car in the garage and raced up to the 42nd floor where we all pressed ourselves against our windows looking out at the vastness of Lake Michigan. My mom retreated for her binoculars. The boat, Joan’s Arc, was not in its typical slip parked in row E in the harbor. I counted meticulously up and down again. The boat slip was empty and Joan’s Arc was not floating anywhere in sight. My mom had grabbed the landline and was juggling the home phone and the binoculars. She shoved the home phone between her ear and right shoulder bone while her eyes, narrowed through the lenses, raked the harbor and the lake in a methodical, desperate sweep.
“I don’t see it anywhere,” my mom said through the phone. This time I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation.
“They did?” my mom asked. I looked at her and couldn't make out any facial expressions as the binoculars continued to block my view.
“No, Shelby, we don’t know that yet. We don’t know that yet. We have to pray.” My mom threw her body completely to the left side and got closer to the window. Moving over a panel as far as she could go.
“No Shelby, I’m telling you I really don’t see anything.” Now the three of us were huddling around my mom, trying to make out and see what she was seeing, wanting answers. Wanting to know more. My dad retreated to the sofa, but continued to look out patiently at the lake and back at the four of us as we played detectives. My dad was much more level headed than my mom. He often did not engage with or get riled up by any sort of drama, neighborhood gossip or family outrages. He was patient, slow, stable and able to crack a joke at the most important times.
“Okay, I do. I do see it,” my mom replied, defeated.
“What do you see?! What are you seeing?!” Madeleine, Jimmy and I whispered to my mom all at once, trying to get her attention, trying to get some of the details of what felt like a very pinnacle moment.
“Okay, call me back after you talk to Winston. We are all here for you. We love you,” said my Mom.
Coming around the tail end of Navy Pier, we noticed a boat being towed by another that just came into view from where our building had been blocking. Joan’s Arc had been found, abandoned, empty, personless and sailing by its own accord, taken by the waves of Lake Michigan. We looked on in silence and sadness as we began to play out the dreadful scenarios in our own minds.
We learned hours later there had been four people on board. Jamie, one of his best guy friends and two girls. A double date. Marijuana and empty bottles had been found on the boat. The two girls survived, found by fisherman heading out at the break of dawn. One was found at 4:30am and the other over an hour later as the sun started to come up.
I learned that recovering drowning victims in Lake Michigan can be a difficult task. The other boy's body was found but Jamie had not surfaced even two days later. At this point, none of us had really held on hope that he was still treading water somewhere or had been located ID-less a state away. We watched dive teams take on the great body of Lake Michigan from all angles. My mom explained they used large nets to sweep through the body of water to retrieve the bodies. They finally found him. He had drowned, just like the other boy. For even as great of a sailor and swimmer and lover of the water that he was, he didn’t make it.
“Things come in threes. Everything comes in threes,” my mom would repeat, hysterically. In our catholic upbringing, good and evil was clear and death was promised, as was heaven, hell or purgatory. My moms claim that things come in threes was a direct tie to the son, the father and the holy spirit. In our faith, the number three signified utmost importance, it meant completion, divinity and most importantly, the Trinity. My mom applied the power of the number three to most things in life. She also believed our family was cursed in a way by the rule of threes. She always wanted my little brother to have a brother of his own, a best friend, but she miscarried and also blamed that on things coming in threes. My grandpa had passed away, now Jamie and my mom battled with the question of who was next. After death, faith and God become a bit more remarkable. Instead of believing in the open vastness of the world, religion brought a concrete sense of comfort and peace.
The kids of the neighborhood who loved, adored, looked up to or had crushes on Jamie were told that drowning was actually a very peaceful way to die. It’s hard to imagine fighting for your life by treading water for hours until slowly suffocating by the disgusting water of Lake Michigan filling your lungs was anything acutely related to peaceful. But we were desperate to believe anything good then. We were told that it’s painful and full of panic at first, but eventually you begin to breathe water like a fish taking it in and out. You lose consciousness and slip into a full memory recall, playing back the brightest, warmest and most wonderful memories of your whole life while the soundtrack of the Beatles or Red Hot Chili Peppers, or whoever was your favorite, plays back. You remember how loved you were and what a treasured life you led.
There were five families in the neighborhood that my parents had solidified as their core crew. Three out of the five had boats. All three were parked in the same lot, even on the same row. For the remainder of that summer, the children of those families spent every single day on Joans Arc, defying both our parental warnings and whispered superstitions. We had learned a curse, they said it took seven years for the soul to pass, seven years of silence before the boat was safe again.
The lake, once a source of joy, had become a place of mourning, a shrine to Jamie. As the summer days faded, so too did our innocence, replaced by a sobering understanding of the world's harsh realities. The lake, once a symbol of freedom and adventure, became a haunting testament to the tragic consequences of our youthful idealism.
Incredible writing. Heartbreaking story. You tell it beautifully. A tribute to Jamie 🩷🥹 I look forward to future chapters!