While I breathe, I hope

I’ll tell you the moment I think I became a writer.

It was 2017. I was at my desk in Kansas City at my friend Jeff’s house. I’d decided I wanted to write the story about a nighttime kayak adventure with my friend Gavin.

I wrote about our adventure paddling across and reflected on that night in light of Gavin’s death a few months later.

I got halfway through the story, and I didn’t know how to end it. Back then, most of my stories didn’t have endings. “And then I found ten dollars” was the running joke my friends had with me because my stories would reach about where I didn’t know what to say and … then I found ten dollars?

For someone who’s wanted to be a writer since reading Corduroy in preschool, hearing you don’t know how to end a story feels like they’re telling you that you’d be better off looking into the insurance biz.

The afternoon light was streaming in through the oak trees, my hand was pressed to my head, tapping on the keyboard. And then the line was there, in my mind, and I wrote:

“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.”

Back then, I didn’t think I looked much like Jesus or even knew Him really well. It was stunning and true to me to realize I knew Him a little, because I knew Gavin.

Last week, my family and I went back to Seabrook Island, to the beach, and the inlet, and Edisto Island across the way where the whole story happened. It was my first time back.

I’m not an introvert, to my knowledge. I like people. Sometimes my brain just needs to be away from people to get its thoughts and the heavy feelings out (if that’s a cloaked way of saying I don’t like to cry in front of people, add that to my profile and send me the bill, all you LMFTs out there).

I walked out onto the beach and looked up. Lately, I’ve been really into constellations and stars, so I opened my app.

“Ah, that bright one is Arcturus,” I said to myself. “Which means Jupiter is over here, yep. Near the twins, Gemini. And there’s Capella, with Orion just below the horizon over there, behind Edisto.”

I went down there to think, feel, and pray. I do more thinking and feeling because when I pray; I get distracted. Random thoughts tramp around my mind because they didn’t get their fair shake of brain matter during the day.

“Jesus, thank you for this place, for South Carolina … the motto of South Carolina is Dum Spiro, Spero — While I breathe, I hope. Isn’t that beautiful? Sorry, Jesus. Thank you for the beach, for seashells … scallop shells are a symbol for pilgrims. Because the lines of the shell all lead to one place, like pilgrims on their way home.” And then I sighed because that was a lovely thought, and it’ll strum my feelings like a Martin guitar, and sometimes I just like to let the notes ring.

Eleven years later, I thought about that night with Gavin.

I looked down the shore and saw me, Gavin, and our friend Eric hauling some kayaks down to the waterline, those two hopping into their seats and my legs wobbling as Gavin handed me a paddle.

I have a conch shell from that adventure. It’s a perfect conch shell. The whole seashore was full of all kinds of shells: conchs, clam shells, mussels, and scallop shells, with their pilgrim lines drawing together toward home.

I still have that conch somewhere. It went to Kansas City with me because every time I saw it; I thought of Gavin and how I miss him.

So last week on the beach, with my thoughts, my feelings, and my prayers, I thought of him. And I thought of scallop shells, and I thought of Dum Spiro, Spero — While I breathe, I hope.

I sat down on the bench built into the wooden walkway across the sand and thought about the day he died.

The night before, they’d focused on his breathing; there was still hope. He needs to get his O₂ levels up. They’re at 60, we need 90. When he wakes up, will his brain be damaged? But he’s still breathing.

The next morning, it was a Sunday. I was getting ready for church after watching Tottenham play West Ham. Eric Dier scored a late winner. And I got a phone call:

“Sam, he’s not going to make it.”

At the hospital, we sat in the waiting lobby, useless here and useless anywhere else. Then they called a couple of us up and said we could say goodbye.

Outside of his room, I saw Gavin’s mom and her friends, who had driven in from Johnson City to be with her.

Inside, Gavin was in his bed, hooked up to machines, his eyes closed, the sound of the machine or his breathing filling the room. His brother Garrett was at the foot of his bed, rubbing his hand. His dad was by the window, looking out. His girlfriend, Jenna, was by his head, and I remember I stood there, in the middle of the room, aware of the texture of the inside of my pockets.

Jenna smiled and said I could take her spot, that I could talk to him.

I don’t remember what I said. I only have so many words. But I know I said, “I love you.” And I said it in a way that made me think I’d never really meant it before. And then, maybe faith, maybe blind hope, maybe naivete, I said, “I’ll see you again.”

And I thought about him in that boat with me. I thought about Jesus and marveling at the stars because he knows their names.

While I breathe, I hope.

Now, when I look at the adventure conch, I realize I should have gone for one of those scallop shells. Not a perfect one — a broken kintsugi fragment, rough on edges, maybe even sharp enough to draw blood.

Because an adventure conch doesn’t tell much of a story. But a scallop shell does.

I’m 33, and I still don’t think I look like Jesus much. I don’t even know how to pray right.

And sitting there on that little bench next to the walkway with the beach in front of me, the words were just there in my mind:

“What’d you do when you came out on the beach, Sam?”

“I came out and looked up at the stars and marveled at their names,” I said.

A breeze drifted in from the west, out to the ocean — a warm Lowcountry wind that had finished its duty ushering the sun into the earth, meandering its way out to the dark sea to hover over the waters, waiting for the sun to rise again.

---