Saving Grace

I was reaching for the last of the decoys, an errant drake woodie that had broke free from its mooring. While it was a little early to be packing up for the day, the ducks had proven wiser, opting for cover from the wind and the rain.

In spite of all the gloom, Charlie had been such a trooper, earning his share of melting marshmallows and hot coca. 

Reaching into the water for that last decoy, I missed my quarry as the boat drifted unexpectedly from a gust of wind. Reaching a little further, a little too far, I lost my balance and started to fall towards the water below.

As I fell, instinctively I lunged toward the front of our Larson v-hull, trying anything I could to regain my balance and perhaps save the cell phone in the non-waterproof pocket of my waders.  I had no idea then how quickly it could go from bad to worse.

For a brief moment nothing made any sense. I had been falling into the water. But now, somehow I was standing. But I wasn’t standing either, I was lying across the bow and I could see the bottom of our boat. It took me a moment to piece it all together that our boat had pitched dangerously into the bog and was taking on water. 

"Oh Jesus, we were tipping!” Still perched on the lip of the bow, I tried to pull my weight as far starboard as possible to bring us back on keel. But sometimes, might isn’t enough. Sometimes, a father’s love isn’t enough. Sometimes, it’s just too much fucking water.  

Having had its fill, the boat spun violently to port and tumbled upside down, throwing me into the bog. Surfacing, all I could hear was Charlie’s screams. It took me a second to focus, forcing the cold water from my eyes. In doing so, I inadvertently knocked my glasses into the lake.   

With blurred vision and rapidly filling waders, I pulled myself to our boat realizing that Charlie had not cleared the rig when it flipped. Instead, he had been trapped by our blind as the boat rolled and was now trapped underneath the boat as it continued to sink.  

His screams, I will never forget what they sounded like, "Oh God, Oh Jesus Christ! Please save my son!"

Yelling for him, I lunged at our boat, raging with everything I was, am, and will be to lift it off of him. But the water was too much and as I pushed up, it pushed me back under the muck.  

I surfaced again, screaming for my son as he screamed for me, “Daddy, I’m drowning!” I raced alongside the boat, feeling my way with my feet, searching for anything that I could stand on for leverage.

I was a maniac and I thought this was how it was going to be. That my son was going to die, right there in front me, for me to listen to. I’ve never known such powerlessness and terror as I did at that moment.  

Clinging to the boat, I made my way to the aft and stumbled across the remnants of a long sunken pine. Stepping onto it, I grabbed the rear of the boat and thrust upward with everything I had left.

The corner of the boat emerged from the water just enough that I could see Charlie's fingers grasping for daylight. I took his hand in my own and pulled him to me as tightly as I could. He exploded into my arms crying, "I thought I was dying daddy, I thought was going to die down there!"

And while I tried my best to console him, I had thought the same.

I pushed Charlie onto the bow of our upturned boat, which was floating precariously above the water line. With little concern for himself, Charlie started calling for Moose, worried that she too had been trapped underneath the sinking boat. Fortunately, Moose had made her way out safely, and having cleared the debris, she found her perch beside Charlie on the bow. 

I tried climbing next to them, but my weight was too much and the bow began to sink. I slid back into the water. Scanning the tree line, I was at a lose for words.

Reaching into the pocket of my waders, I pulled out my phone which had been fully soaked. With the screen still illuminated, Charlie’s spirits were buoyed, but his enthusiasm was quickly tempered when we discovered the keypad no longer functioned. Then abruptly the screen went black.

With no way to call for help, Charlie started yelling. I was taken aback at first, for some reason I had never considered doing that. Together we yelled for help, our pleas echoing across an empty lake. There was no response, no cavalry, no saving grace. Seeing my son shiver, I feared hypothermia, and while his clothes were wet I was reticent to pull his gear off.  

I made the decision then to swim to the nearest cabin for help, but with a 100 yards of bog before me, the prospect was daunting. Having just started packing up and pulling the decoys, neither Charlie or I had been wearing our life jackets, which were now trapped in the darkness of the overturned boat.  

Shedding my coat and waders, I placed them next to Charlie and pushed off into the water despite his nervous protest. I sunk down into the mire with my head just above the water and thought to myself, “this is how I am going to die.”

Resuming my perch upon the sunken timber, I noticed my floating gun case, empty and bobbing beside me. I told Charlie that I would use it for buoyancy and that I needed to swim to shore for help. He was terrified, but he understood. “Daddy, make sure you empty the case and zip it back up”. I grabbed the case, and following my little scouts instructions, emptied the water from it and readied myself for the swim.   

Pushing off from our boat, I paddled slowly through the rice. With my gun case pressed against my chest and wrapped underneath my arms, it raised my head ever so slightly out of the water.

Having lost sight of me in the rice, Charlie yelled nervously, “Daddy are you ok?”.  His voice cracked, and I could hear the cold creeping in along with the tears.  For the next twenty minutes or so, father and son played a harrowing game of Marco Polo amidst the rice and lilies.  He would call my name every so often, and I would respond with my progress.  

The water became increasingly shallow, thick with hidden stumps and debris, and while they slowed my progress, they gave me hope that I was nearing dry land.  

Reaching shore, I pulled myself onto the dock. Shivering from the cold, I ascended the stairs to the cabin above.  I knocked on the back door having seen a light on in the kitchen.  I explained to them that my boat had sunk and that my boy was stranded, but no one was home to hear my cries for help.  

I went to each of the doors, I peered into the windows hoping someone, anyone, would wake up and help. But the cabin was empty.  

Returning to the shoreline below, I lowered their little red fishing boat from its lift into the water. Rocked back and forth by the wind, I attempted to start the motor but there wasn't enough juice in the battery to coax it to life.  

With no oars or engine, and my son still adrift and out of reach, I felt so feeble, so goddamn useless.  I was unable to fix this thing that had happened to us, this thing that was still happening to us.  

Surveying the little red fishing boat, I noticed a trolling motor and turned the dial. The prop spun to life and I immediately lowered it into the water.  It was slow, and I was worried that it might fizzle mid-route, but I managed to power my way back to Charlie and Moose.

Reaching our capsized boat, and not waiting for an invitation, Moose jumped in. Charlie on the other hand, calmly passed me my gear and made his way next to me in the little red fishing boat. 

Having Charlie there out of the water, I was flooded with emotion and I pulled him close. I was crying, and spitting, and shivering, and happy, and terrified. I was all of these things and it was all too much, it was just too real.  

And Charlie knew it was too much for me, and my son put is arms on my shoulders and told me, "It's going to be okay Daddy".

With Charlie's help I was able to position a second trolling motor into the water and we made our way back to the cabin. With no phone, and no neighbors to speak of, all we could do was walk to safety. Still concerned about the cold, I was unsure how I was going to get the little red fishing boat back on its lift and my son out of harms way. 

Then, as had become our new normal, the unexpected happened yet again. Two duck hunters, who just happened to be scouting locations on a rainy, horrible day, cut through the rice within earshot of us.  

Both Charlie and I started yelling and waving our hands. Confused, the newcomers kept their distance and for while I thought they would just leave us. Then they spied our wreck and one of them yelled, “there’s a capsized boat over there!”

Realizing our predicament, their trepidation was quickly replaced with compassion. They helped me position the little red fishing boat back onto its lift and welcomed the three of us into their own rig. Huddled on the floor, with my son in my arms and my dog by my side, they whisked us away from the rice and all my worst fears.

The whine of their engine, the chill of the air, the rhythmic bobbing of their boat as it crested the waves, none of it seemed real. But all of it was real. The boats pilot, his last name a fuzzy memory in the back of my brain, was a mountain of a man and when we reached our dock all I could do was hug him. 

I’m grateful to those two men, for their compassion, for their kindness, for the grace they bestowed upon us. I am also grateful to whatever God sent them to that remote patch of rice. They saved us, just as that sunken limb had saved us. And I do mean us, for had my little man drowned, so too would his father.

I will never forget that feeling of approaching death as it settles into the soul, or what utter hopelessness feels like when all is nearly lost. But more importantly, I will never, for as long as I live, take another moment for granted that I have with my son at my side.

Today the bog nearly took away the best part of me, but by the grace of God, we made it home to hunt another day.