Hindsight and Broken Boats

Like a lot of stories, especially the really good ones, I’ve found I didn’t immediately realize why it mattered so much when I got to the end.

I wrote this piece in 2018. It’s about my friend Gavin. It’s now been a decade since he died. This story was the first time I wrote a story from my life and learned something I didn’t know before I wrote.

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This story is about hindsight. I’ve heard it is 20/20 and that’s probably true given time. Because like a lot of stories, especially the really good ones, I’ve found I didn’t immediately realize why it mattered so much when I got to the end. To me it was another fun one to tell people (except my mom because it involves dumb decisions and a measure of danger).

To the north and south of Charleston, South Carolina are chains of barrier islands that guard the coast from the Atlantic Ocean. One of them is called Seabrook Island and I went there on spring break with Tennessee’s Campus Crusade group during my final semester of college.

I have a love/fear relationship with the ocean. On one hand, when I go for long spells without the sea I miss it. And not miss like a good burger you had one time in some city that you think about every now and then — I miss it like an old friend. But the ocean also terrifies me. The imagination so easily captivated by Jimmy Buffett songs also dredges up all the horrible ways the ocean can kill me like sharks or a rip current slinging me out into oblivion.

It was one of our last nights on the trip and as college normally goes, the fear of missing out and simply being young leads to late nights hanging out with friends. It was probably 2AM and I was heading to my room after some card games and ghost stories. I always feel on edge after hearing ghost stories. I don’t think I believe in ghosts or anything like that but some people are really good at telling creepy stories. It makes the dark seem a little more terrifying.

I was a few feet from my door thinking about being alone with my thoughts in bed (not an exciting prospect after creepy ghost stories) when my friends Eric and Gavin came around the corner. They weren’t strolling, they weren’t stumbling tired. They were moving at what can only be described as a mischievous trot. I had just met Eric and I liked him well enough but I knew Gavin, and mischief was rarely out of the question with him.

“Where are y’all going?” I asked.

“We’re going to steal kayaks and paddle to the other island. Want to come?” Gavin confidently said.

That’s a horrible idea, I thought to myself, there’s no way I’m doing that. In my head I could see the CNN broadcast with our pictures and an update about a Coast Guard search.

“I should go to bed,” I said.

We found the kayaks under the house and drug them down to the beach. Normally I love nighttime by the ocean when millions of stars come out to the chorus of lapping waves. But my anxiety was screeching something different than the peaceful scenery.

“Why is this a good idea?” I asked Gavin.

“It’s not,” I could see him grinning, his white teeth glowing in the dark.

The island we were going to paddle to was across the place where the Edisto River meets the Atlantic. The distance is probably less than half a mile but that night it felt like literal oceans.

Gavin and I were in a boat together while Eric had a kayak to himself. The going was rough for Gavin and I; we could never seem to get our boat steering in the right direction.

“Must be something wrong with this boat” Gavin would say every now and then.

“I wonder if there are sharks in here?” Eric asked. I had never wanted to throw a paddle like a spear and impale someone before so that was already another new experience along with the kayak theft and being on the ocean in a boat smaller than the creatures I believed were swimming underneath.

After an eternity of pitching left then right and finally going straight again, we reached the other side. The beach was dark and covered in massive seashells and we could see the lights from our island across the way. But on this beach it seemed as if a million more stars had come out to dance. It was wild and untouched, like we had truly discovered it ourselves. I really should have enjoyed the scene but I was so apprehensive about the journey back that I spent the whole time urging the guys to get back in the boat and get me home.

On the return journey I looked up and saw the lights where we were staying ahead and with each stroke of the paddles, we’d get closer and closer. Slowly my chest tension eased and eased. I could see the lights getting brighter and brighter. Gavin was in the back still talking about how something was wrong with this boat because it wouldn’t go straight.

When we hit the shore, I felt like kissing the sand. I now understood why people act this way when they get back on shore after an adventure at sea.

I went back to my room and wrote something in my journal about adventures and how when you’re in them, you’re kind of scared and not enjoying it so much. The end reward isn’t simply a feeling of accomplishment; it is feeling closer to the people who went through the ordeal with you. Because I think being on an adventure with friends is better than being alone (especially after ghost stories).

Reflecting later, I thought about the boat and I realized there was actually nothing wrong with it. I was so scared of capsizing that I wasn’t willing to lean into my strokes with the paddle. Gavin was doing so much to keep us going that every one of his paddles sent the boat a direction that my frightened attempts weren’t capable of equaling. But he spared my dignity and blamed the boat. When it comes to adventures, friends like Gavin are good ones to have.

Storytelling is so hard. I’ve never stared into the oblivion of a blank page with confidence in myself or certainty of how it will end, which they say is the most important part. The ending is what everything builds to and it is the moment where the story’s true meaning comes to light.

I didn’t know what the ending of my kayak story should be. There’s probably a few morals in there, but there was no ending that pulled every detail together into a crescendo of meaning that made it a story worth telling. It seemed like just another thing that happened, like most of life.

Later that year, Gavin was killed in an accident. The day he died I thought about that night in the boat with him and cried; when I think about it now, I still do. I used to think crying was like stories, somehow we’re supposed to make sense of what is happening. But I’ve never gotten there.

That night, I think Gavin gave me a picture of what Jesus is actually like. Every day, I find myself in the front of a boat terrified of what might happen to me, too afraid to put my paddle in the water. And He’s in the back with me marveling about the stars and what their names are, and making jokes about the boat being the problem. And with Him there, I’m a little less afraid.

Rarely in life do I feel like I see the shore with the warm lights getting closer and closer which makes it harder for me to ease my anxious soul because something inside me doubts if I’ll ever get there. But I keep going, even if the boat keeps pitching left and right. Because I know there’s a friend waiting for me on the other side, and another here with me who will make sure I get there.