The time had finally arrived for my
family and I to leave on our vacation.
With Sarah, 20 years old, starting her radiology classes this summer at Owens Community
College and Julie, 18 years old, just graduating
from Toledo Christian School
and starting a new job, it seemed that a vacation with the whole family would
be impossible. Quality vacations with my
family, has been a goal of mine since 1987.
It has taken much personal sacrifice to attain this goal. The value of being with my family, and free
from the every day responsibilities of life, so I might concentrate on them,
has been worth it all. We had not been
able to take a vacation every year, but the trips we have taken have helped to
bond us together. We have created
memories that will be passed on to my great-great grandchildren. I have enjoyed taking them places we have never
been before; helping Sandy, my wife of 22 years, find another spoon for her collection and
Sarah a thimble, Julie a bell and pigs and my 8 year old son, Marty, find a hat
and post cards. To think that this
vacation could be the last that we as a family will spend together, brings me
great sorrow. But, my hope is that as my
children leave home, we will somehow be able to overcome the obstacles in order
to vacation together.
It’s
Thursday night, July 28, 1994, the family is waiting in the motor home and the
familiar sound of my family keeps ringing in my ears, “Dad hurry up, let’s go,” as I try to take care of all those last
minute details. Finally 10:30pm, all packed, the boat
attached, and the lights working we are on our way. Two blocks away from home we remembered
something we forgot, but too late now we won’t turn back. Heading north on U.S. 75 from Toledo, we try to find a
roadside rest area around Birch Run, reaching the Frankenmuth exit, we get off
and gas up. We asked about the rest area
and found that it was closed, so we spend the night at the truck stop. In the morning, we shopped and ate at
Frankenmuth and the afternoon we went back to Birch Run to the famous outlet
store mall. Sarah, being a full time
student limited her spending to less than $200, Julie found all the brand names
and new fashions, while Marty scored 30% of getting a new toy at every store. My wife was satisfied with looking, maybe
that’s why we get along so well. That
night we stayed at the rest area before the Standish exit.
On
Saturday, as we drove up U.S. 23 along the Bay, I was reminded that it was 25
years ago that I came this way with my Dad and family to vacation at my
Grandparent’s cottage on Sages Lake in Hale.
These thoughts were having a deep effect on me; to think I was younger
than my daughters at that time, how fast those 25 years have gone. Sarah was sitting in the front seat next to
me and I said, “It has been over 20 years since I have been through here and my
grandparents who owned the cottage are dead and someday you may bring your
children or grandchildren up here after I am dead. What do you think about that?” Sarah never gave me an answer. I did not ask the question to torment or
tease her, but I want my children to know that someday I will be gone and I
don’t want to be remembered just because I am their Dad, but because I was a
valuable resource to their life. This
means that they will have to notice the things I provide for them, and more
important, they will need to communicate to me their needs and feelings so I
can be a better father. Although to
their credit, they do not need this lesson because they have taken much from me
and they communicate their needs very well.
So the question served as a reminder to us to make the most of the time
God gives us and not take any of our days together for granted.
We arrived
at the East Tawis State Camp Grounds Saturday, around noon, where we were told there are no sites
available. As we sat in the motor home
talking over what we should do, the ranger came out to tell us there was a
cancellation and we were given a great site where we could see the Bay and walk
to the beach. After unloading the boat
of the bikes, lounge chairs and firewood, we drove over to Jerry’s Marina to launch the
boat. The plan was I would take Sarah,
Julie and Marty in the boat to the camp site and then back to the launch as a
practice run and then Julie would drive the boat back to the camp grounds and I
would drive the motor home. Now my wife,
Sandy, has a
fear about the water and boats and to add to her fears, Julie has never driven
a boat before. But, my wife submits in
fear and trembling. After showing Julie
how to get to the camp grounds in the boat a better plan came to mind, I will
ride a bike back to the motor home and strap it to the boat trailer and drive
the motor home and trailer back to the site and this is what I did. Now, Sandy did not see me return and thinks I
let Marty ride in the boat with Julie, and having just a little bit of mischief
in me, I don’t tell her what I did until we got back to the park.
As soon as
we had camp setup, I left the girls to fix something to eat and took Marty in
the boat over to the other side of the Bay to Mac’s Bait Shop. Dave showed me
several pike they had caught in the last couple days, they were 10 to 14
pounds. He had me so enthused about the
pike fishing, it was hard to think of anything else. I bought two Styrofoam buckets, three bit
hooks, steal leaders, bobbers, chubs and minnows. When Marty and I got back to camp, we ate and
I put new line on my fishing poles anticipating days of great catches.
That night
I fished for hours and did not catch anything.
Roger, Dave’s brother from Mac’s Bait Shop, was in his boat next to me
and he had caught a couple of nice pike.
Roger is a very friendly guy; he is the type of guy that if you can’t
make friends with him you can’t make friends with anybody. We talked to each other all the time we were
fishing. Finally, about 8:30 just before dark, I picked up my
son’s fishing pole, a Zebco 33 with bad gears and old 10 lb. test line. I had put an old rusty spoon with reflective
tape on his line when we launched the boat earlier that day because Marty was
swinging his new sunglasses (he had just bought an hour before) and they
slipped from his hand and landed in the water where they launch the big boats
from the cradle. I tried to snag them in
that 10 foot of water, but I was unsuccessful.
With that pole all ready to go, I began to cast that old spoon and to my
surprise I got a strike. I set the hook
and the fight was on, trying to reel in line as the gears were slipping and
jumping. As the fish would run, I would try to let out enough line so that the
line would not break, but not too much so the fish could throw the hook. At one
point, I got the fish up to the boat only to find out that my net was too
small. I knew that if I was to win this battle,
I would have to tire this fish out and either grab him by the eyes or under the
gills. This was the biggest pike I had
ever had on my line. With poor equipment
and no net, I felt challenged, but Roger was encouraging me all the way until
that 35 inch Northern Pike was in the boat and soon to be hanging on my trophy
wall. I had caught two more pike on this
vacation; one 32 inches, and our last night, a 29 inch which I cooked over the
fire pit in a thunder storm. It was so
good that we ate the whole fish as a late night snack.
Sunday afternoon,
Marty and I took the boat across the Bay to the State Marina and walked to the
Log Cabin Bait Shop. My chubs, which
cost 30 to 50 cents a piece were dying, so I bought a trolling minnow bucket
for $11.95 and some more chubs and minnows.
Marty and I put down the throttle and headed back across the Bay. We did not get too far before my special
fishing hat flew off my head and ended up in the water. This was very funny to
Marty. After, we fished my hat out of
the water, we went over to buoy #4 to fish.
Roger and Dave were there in their boat along with several other boats,
but the fish were not biting. Roger says
he is going to try the area down by the campground beach and the Coast Guard
Station. Marty wanted to go in, so I took him in and joined Roger and Dave by
the Coast Guard Station. Soon we
realized the fishing is no better there, so we moved back to buoy #4. After fishing there for about 20 to 30
minutes, I realized my new $11.95 minnow bucket with chubs and minnows was gone
(I forgot to put them in the boat when I left the last fishing spot). I said to Roger and Dave in the other boat,
“I lost my new minnow bucket I just bought a few hours ago so I am going to go
look for it. It will be a miracle if I
find it.” Roger told me to go out 50
feet farther than where we were fishing because of the wind. So I pulled up the Danford anchor and hung it
over the windshield with the anchor rope pulled back from the bow laying on the
floor next to my feet. When I got to the
area where I thought the minnow bucket might be, I saw a boat stopped and I
asked them if they had seen my bucket, they said they just pulled it out of the
water, thinking it was a child’s toy truck floating out there. I pulled along side them and they gave me the
bucket. As they tried to take off, a
fishing line on their boat hooked the anchor rope on my bow. Ken, the owner of the boat, hollered to his
wife, Carol who was driving the boat, to stop.
Carol stopped so we could remove the hook, and then Ken and Carol Baker
went on their way to Jerry’s Marina
where they dock their boat. Now that I
had my minnow bucket, I could go back to fishing for that pike that is going to
beat the 35 inches I caught Saturday night.
Sitting on the back of the seat and the anchor still hanging on the
windshield in my 17 foot Duo boat with 115hp Merc., I am ready to go. I put the throttle all the way down and the
boat is planing at 36 mph, what a great feeling as the boat planes and the wind
blows through your hair; everything is smooth and beautiful. Then I noticed my anchor rope blowing, so I
grabbed it with my left hand while steering with my right, but just at that
time the boat jerked and turned to the left, so I turned the wheel to the right
to compensate as I was being thrown out the left side of the boat. On the way out, I hit my head I think on the
top frame of the windshield. Everything
happened so quickly. I thought it was
like a bad dream. Terror stuck me as it
seemed that it was less than a second and I hit the water. When I came up, I saw that my boat was making
a right hand circle and it was headed right at me, about 30 feet away. My first thoughts were those of a fellow in
high school who was thrown from his boat and the boat came around and the prop
cut up his face. At the same time, this
vision is going through my mind, I was trying to decide whether to swim right
or left or to stay straight up and down and try to push off the boat with my
hands. At the time, the boat was 30 feet
from me and then I saw it quickly shift, further on its side as if someone was
in the boat and turned the wheel as hard as they could the rest of the way to
the right. My next thought was if there
were other boaters who could be hurt by my boat; then I realized that there
were no other boats I could see, except for Ken and Carol Baker’s, and they
were a long way off heading for the marina which was the opposite
direction. I yelled for help, but I saw
no response. Each time I yelled I could
feel energy leave me. I was a long ways
from shore and I am not a good swimmer, and I was not wearing a life
jacket. I knew then I was going to
drown. I believe in Jesus Christ and
know He paid the price so I might have eternal life. I also believe God does miracles and I have
seen miracles, but I knew there was nothing He could do for me now except take
me home to Heaven. As I swam toward
shore, I could see the campgrounds where my family was, and as I thought of
them, I thought I am going to die at age 41 and Sarah, Julie and Marty are not
going to have a father and my wife, Sandy,
won’t have a husband. So as I am
swimming towards them with no possible way of reaching them, I said my final
good-byes to each one of them, even though they could not hear me. I soon had no more energy to swim, so I tried
to float on my back, which I could never do.
My feet became like a weight pulling me down under the surface. Each
time I went down, the greater the struggle to get to the surface for another
breath of air. I came to the point that
I felt I could make it to the surface maybe two more times, so what would be
the best way to drown. I decided that
after two more times to the surface, I would swallow as much water as I could
in order to minimize my suffering. But,
when I came to the surface, I saw a boat as Ken reached out a pole to me, it
was like the Shepherd’s staff of Psalm 23 pulling me unto the swim deck. I could not get in the boat, but with my
knees on the swim deck and my arms and head on the back of the boat, Ken hung
on to me, I was safe. Ken asked me if I
was alright, but all I would say was, “I’m alive.” Ken said they lost me the last time I went
under and they did not think I would come up again, so he was just about to
jump in after me when I surfaced. They
said I had taken in a lot of water and they felt I only had about two more
seconds of life left in me. Ken and
Carol thought I would get better now that I was out of the water, but I
didn’t. I began to vomit and get much
weaker. The Baker’s called the nearby
Coast Guard Station on their marine radio and an ambulance. They watched the Coast Guard try to stop my
boat until they saw I was not responding well, so they got to the dock as
quickly as possible. There, at the dock,
the ambulance was just arriving. I was
stilling vomiting and did not want to open my eyes. I knew someone checked my pupils with a
flashlight and said there was no response.
Someone else asked who I was and where I was from. I told them my name and that my family was at
the state park on Lot 33. I was also asked if I had any I.D. and I said
in my top pocket was my fishing license and a $50 bill. So they searched through my shirt which had
been shredded by the anchor rope when I was thrown from the boat. A woman who lived on a boat there at Jerry’s Marina, named Darcie,
drove her little red car to the campgrounds.
When she found my family she told them I was in a boating accident where
I was tangled in the rope and dragged. You could easily come to the conclusion
that I was dragged by the rope burns all over my body. I must have received the rope burns when I was
thrown out of the boat. I did not start
feeling better until after I was at the hospital for at least an hour. The accident happened around 8:30 pm just before dark and I was
released from the hospital about 11:30
pm. I was treated for sever
rope burns on the back side of my right leg behind the knee and my chest from the
left arm down my chest past my belt line.
I did not tell them about hitting my head because it did not hurt, but
weeks later my head still hurt when touched.
I am also grateful to an organization called FISH. It is made up of people from various churches
to help people in need. They had one of
their members pick us up at the hospital and take us back to the campsite.
I believe
there were at least five miracles that took place out there on the bay. The first was to get my minnow bucket
back. The second was when I hit my head
I was not knocked out or cut. The third
was that the anchor rope did not become the cords of death that entangled
around me. The forth was when the boat
came around to run over me, it turned into a sharper turn causing the boat to
miss me. The fifth was God spared my life from drowning
Later, when
I went to the Coast Guard Station to get my boat, I found that the newly
reconditioned prop on my motor had been chewed up, but the boat did not have a
scratch. I had no idea what was lying
below the surface that night as I was planning 36 mph across the bay to fish
for another trophy pike. What a reminder
of how quickly and unexpectedly our life could end.
In the
Psalms of the Bible, I see David had a similar experience as mine. He described it in Psalm 18:4-6 and 16-19
like this:
“The cords of death entangled me; the
torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted
me. In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried to my God for help. From His
temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him, into His ears. He reached down from on high and took hold of
me; He drew me out of deep waters. He
rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for
me. They confronted me in the day of my
disaster, but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He
delighted in m.” NIV
As I
struggled in that watery grave with no hope, I was convinced I would die and at
age 41 my life was over. The sorrow I
had for my family that would be left behind was the most sever and unbearable
pain. For me, within seconds, all my
earthly struggles would be over and I knew Jesus Christ would come and take me
home with Him because of His promise in Romans 10:9-10:
“That if you confess with you mouth, Jesus
is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will
be saved. For it is with your heart that
you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and
are saved.” NIV
You see I
am trusting and believing in what Jesus Christ did on the cross to take away my
sins and make me righteous before Him; the wages of sin is death and I know
there is nothing I can do to remove this eternal sentence except trust in
Christ and His work on the cross. I also
confess Jesus as Lord of my life, which means that each day of my life on earth
I will do what He wants me to do, I will go where He wants me to go, and I will
say what He wants me to say, I belong to Him and He makes the decisions for my
life. In Proverbs 3: 16:25
and 3:5-7 it says:
“There is a way that seems right to
a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
NIV “Trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all
your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the
Lord and shun evil.” NIV
Much to my
surprise, God pulled me out of the watery grave and not out of the earth. I know that there will be a time when God
shall take me from the earth to be with Him forever. I look forward to that day. But for now, He left me here not because I
want to live, but because He has a plan for my life.
I was so
convinced that I was going to die there in the waters of Saginaw Bay
that for the next few days I had to convince myself I was alive. I remember feeling so empty and lost. Sunday night I laid in bed going over and
over what had happened in my mind. I had
been given life, now what should I do with it.
As I laid there, I said to the Lord, “I hope you did not save my life
because I want to live, but because You have a plan for my life.” Life is hollow without a purpose. None of us know when our life on earth will
end or how quickly it will happen, therefore, make sure you are right with
Jesus Christ. Your life is not worth
living unless you are living for Him.
