“Dad?”
“DAD?”
“DAAAAADD?” I screamed for the third time. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
With a gut-wrenching pain in my stomach, I sprinted up and down the scorching shoreline, scanning the sea for any sight of my dad. As the waves calmly crashed on the sand, and no one was within sight, I began to panic. Running back into the water, I continued to cry “DAD?” to an empty sea. Tears of fear stained my eyes as I retreated from the water, sprinting back along the shoreline. My two younger sisters were just returning from their walk along the beach, and when their confused, distraught faces met mine, my heart sank.
“Bobby?” my youngest sister said with uncertainty and unease. “Where’s Dad? What’s going on?”
“Uhhhm,” I replied with watery eyes. “I’m not sure. But it’s going to be okay.” And in my short 15 years of life I don’t think I had ever told a lie as blatant as that one.
It was the 28th of August, a Tuesday that had begun as any other. My family and I were vacationing in the Outer Banks for the very last time, and my excitement was immeasurable. Traveling in North Carolina meant spending an entire week with my extended family, all sixteen of us, and nothing in the world was better than that. We had overcome everything imaginable in our seven years down the Outer Banks, from natural disasters, to immense flooding, to swarms of green flies, but not in a million years could I have been prepared for the heartache that would occur on this trip.
As hope seemed to be waning as quickly as the waves crashed and receded again, I hastily ran back to our tent and told my aunts and uncles as we desperately searched for help.
“HEY LIFEGUARD. HEY OVER HERE. WE NEED HELP,” I screamed as I flung my arms in the air. “OVER HERE.”
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“We can’t … we can’t find my dad,” I said as I gasped for air.
“Where was he last seen? And what does he look like?” the lifeguard responded as he dialed 911.
“Um, a blue bathing suit with a gray swim shirt. He’s like 6 feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes, 190 lbs. We were swimming back from the sandbar and when I got to shore he was gone.”
“Okay okay, I’ll call for help.”
With every family member trying to provide help in some way, my cousin Danny ran back to the house to see if my dad had somehow returned, but instead of finding my dad, he found my mother. And when she sprinted onto the beach, and my exhausted eyes met hers, every ounce of life and love I had within me was immediately sucked out. The overwhelming nausea of my stomach caused me to collapse to the ground, as I buried my face in the sand.
“Mom . . . I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault,” I uttered again and again with tears streaking down my sunburnt cheeks. “We were both in the water just riding waves, and I saw him on his back moving his arms backward, but I thought he was just relaxing, and doing backstroke, I swear,” . . . I continued, as I gasped for air. “SHIT, NO … Please God, Please. Please wake up, Bobby. WAKE UP. This has to be a nightmare … Please someone, ANYONE … HELP.”
And in that very moment, I felt utterly submerged in water, yet I had never been thirstier in my entire life. And that’s the tragedy of living.
Four blistering, wretched hours later, my dad was found by a man and his son a mere hundred yards from where we were sitting. They had spotted him as he began to wash up on shore, and dragged him onto the sand.
This was it. The hope ran out.
The paramedics diagnosed the death as a drowning, but we all knew that wasn’t the case. It couldn’t have been. A helicopter flew over the ocean once more and I knew this was the end. The scuba divers retreated from the ocean, the lifeguards got back on their ATV’s, and everyone on the beach returned to their normal lives. Except for me. Except for us. And despite the incredible amount of bustling going on all around me, my eyes were paralyzed in a blank, ghost-like stare. My cheeks were sandy and sunburnt, and a single tear rolled down my face and onto my chapped lips. Accompanied by my mother and two sisters, I stared out over the ocean as I had a million times before, but I wasn’t waiting for a dolphin to leap and make a splash this time. I was waiting for my dad. And for the first time in my life, he wasn’t coming home.
____________
Broken glass. Punctured walls. Bruised knuckles. Bloody fists. Spotty vision. Chills. Numb.
Black. Black everywhere. Where was I? What was happening? Dad? DAD? I couldn’t breathe. I woke up in a cold sweat a day after everything happened, sprawled out on the front deck directly outside of my mom’s bedroom. How did I get there? Where was everyone? I walked back inside to find my family on the back deck looking for life in the sunrise, all still trying to piece together the events of the previous day. And in a room full of my closest family, I had never felt so alone. So I grabbed a glass of water, and returned to the front balcony.
The porch was dressed with a wooden balcony about four feet high; the pegs were separated just enough that my feet fit snug between them, and I stood against it.
My vision once again became blurry. My hands began to shake so severely to the point where I couldn’t hold my glass anymore. “CLING PSHHHHH,” I heard as the glass shattered against the driveway below, the sound ringing in my ears. My knees began to give out as my legs quivered; I rocked back and forth on the railing as my vision went in and out.
“This can’t be real, this can’t be real,” I keep trying to tell myself. “This has to be a fucked up dream.”
There was so much shit racing through the cracks and crevices of my bones that I was numb. Numb to the point where I considered throwing my body over that balcony just like the glass. How much more could I be hurt when my soul was already shattered? I was drowning. Drowning in the chaos between my ears, and in the blood splattered throughout my broken heart. My mind became an ocean, flooded with nightmares that crashed so ferociously I could hardly breathe. I was sobbing and shedding tears at a rate not healthy for human eyes, as I continued to unsteadily rock back and forth. How could I live like this? With this unbelievably colossal amount of guilt crushing every bone and organ within me. I was collapsing from the inside out reliving the events of the day over and over and over …
Why hadn’t I run back in sooner?
What the fuck was I doing?
How could I be so blind and stupid?
Why me, why me?
If only it had been me.
And as the questions continued to consume me, the tears only got worse as I continued to search for answers I would never find. I was stuck in a tsunami wave wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, and had never wanted to drown so much in my entire life. And then, he arrived.
All of a sudden, a beautiful red bird exhibiting the most unique colors I had ever seen captivated my weary eyes. Coming from a neighbor’s tree, he swiftly flew across the yard and landed on the railing of the balcony, as if he were trying to keep me from going over. While perched on the railing, his broad and sturdy shoulders manifested his dominant physique, reminding me of my dad. The bright and vivid colors of his feathers reflected in the sunlight, as did his beady eyes, which resembled that of a black gemstone, just as my dad’s dark brown eyes had. As the bird’s eyes stared into my own, I felt united to him as though he was my dad. Remembering the connection my dad shared with the birds in our own garden, I wondered if it could really be him.
As the bird began to sing, his sweet chirp sounded like that of a beautiful flute, one that would linger in my ears for days to come. It was a sound that would bring joy to its listeners; one that could produce a smile in the very worst of days. The sound was new to me, something that I had never heard before, but surely, a sound I would never forget. As the beautiful song ended, the bird glanced back once more before his jagged-shaped wings began to flap, gracefully flying away into the sea blue sky. Gazing into the sun, I kept an eye on the bird for as long as I possibly could, until it was far from my view.
It’s hard to describe the impact the bird had on my life, but I can guarantee I’ll never experience something like it again. There were things that went through my mind on that balcony that I’m not proud of, and they definitely aren’t my first choice for discussion, but in a way they formed the soul that I bear today. I’m no longer a 19 year-old kid with a 19 year-old soul, but rather a soul far beyond my years. And I’ll forever be grateful for how my mind was able to overcome those demons. I’d become a dusty broken record if I recalled everything I learned on that balcony, but above all, it was the uncertainty of life that struck me hardest. People die every day, every minute, every second, yet we never expect death to creep into our backdoors, stealing our loved ones faster than we’re able to turn around. The bird helped me realize that. He helped me realize that maybe we should turn around a little more often. Maybe we should stop and breathe every once in a while, and not worry as much about whether or not we’ll make the next train home. He helped me realize the importance of being straightforward with those you hold closest to your heart.
I’ve learned a lot in the past four years, but most notably, how quickly the things we love most are taken from us. Be straightforward. Tell those that you love that you love them. Because at the end of the day, we never know what lies ahead. We never know when our last day will be.
We never know when that wave is coming.