Stripes

It was April 23, 2016 when Joe and I were in Cayo Coco, Cuba on a romantic get-away for two in celebration of our 15^th wedding anniversary and staying at a beautiful resort located on a paradise-like white sand stretch of beach with clear turquoise waters.

The ocean was at times during the week, rough, so you knew not to venture too far in on those days – particularly if you weren’t a strong swimmer.

We had also had a couple of calm days, where the water just casually made its way to shore, quietly lapping at the soft sands and slowly slinking its way back out into the large pool it had just come from.

On our last day there, we had had another day of rough water but that’s the nature of the beast when you’re at the ocean. The warning flags of the resort’s beach on those days though, will tell you when you should dare to venture in – or not.

On Sunday, Joe and I were making our way to the beach for our final afternoon of our sunny week together at around lunch time. As Joe stood at the bar of the fully occupied beach bar/grill of lunchers elevated way up high via a long wooden staircase from the beach having our mugs filled with drinks, I stood watching out over the railing of the restaurant at the pounding waves and thinking how it would be without a doubt, a no-ocean day for me, when I noticed two young kids playing in the surf.

A young girl, maybe Eliza’s age, was playing in the water a little closer to the shoreline. A little further out was a boy, whom I estimated to be about 12.

I could hear faint yelling over the roar of the waves but were they the sounds of kids having fun elsewhere on the beach being carried in the wind? It was really hard to decipher. As I paid closer attention though, it looked as though the boy was struggling to free himself from the waves he appeared caught in and was now extending both arms above his head in distress.

The yelling had been his.

Just then, a woman appeared in my view from the left at the shoreline, rushing to the water’s edge directly in front of, but yet a great distance away from him. In that second of wondering if I was maybe misreading the situation, the woman’s arms went up to her head as she frantically turned, with her upper body bent forward in an urgency, searching for someone to yell to – to anyone within shouting distance – for help.

I recognized the quick movements of one man darting towards her as being those of a staff member of the resort’s animation team – running but then stopping when he arrived at her. I could tell by his pause that he couldn’t see the boy, as he was at the shore’s level with the crashing and up-swooping waves blocking his view of any presence in the ocean when he stretched to peer over them. He had up to that point only been signified by the gestures of a frantic woman – that someone was in the ocean needing help but I knew that he couldn’t see where they were exactly.

I could see the instant that he caught view of the bobbing head between the waves as that was when he sprang into approximately 4 ft of water from the shoreline, and then dove out of sight until resurfacing again inside the thunderous waves, and disappearing again in what seemed to be slow-motion.  The whole nightmare in retrospect now that I recall it all, seemed to be in slow motion in almost a succession of bursts of short still shots as each progressive wave crashed and rolled in, and of each advance he made toward the boy when he would appear again in the waves, until finally reaching him.

As I continued to watch in disbelief and reaching back with my arm to Joe at the bar, with his hand on the boy, the staff member couldn’t make his way back out of the water – out of the hole the waves were creating and the undertow that now held them both there. He too was now yelling in distress.

In that same moment, a second staff member went running toward the water and disappeared as he too dove in. I turned and finally with sensibilities kicking in through the inability to absorb the reality of what I was witnessing or allowing me to voice a sound, I managed to yell to Joe and the bartender, that the boy and the two men were in trouble.

As I turned back, holding my hands to my chest while the waves threatened to devour them, I watched these two men along with this boy, completely disappear under water as the waves folded and crashed over their heads until occasionally seeing heads appear just above water when the assault gave them a second’s reprieve. In tears at this point at the horror that was unfolding in front of me, I turned to clutch Joe’s arm but rather the bartender, among the many who were now loudly yelling in Spanish down to people on the landing and beach below, was standing next to me.

It was at that moment – as my sight scanned back to the water across the sands, that I saw stripes.  Stripes on dark swim shorts.  Stripes that were slowly and deliberately making their way into the shallow water as they waded, conserving energy and then disappeared into the ocean’s depth.

Stripes that I recognized. And my world stopped.

I watched, now in silent hysteria with my hands over my mouth, as this young boy continued to fight to keep his head above water, and the two men growing exhausted in the fight now for their own lives as well as that of the boy’s they tried to keep within their reach. It was now my reality. My husband was about to become one of them.

As the large crowd began to gather on the beach at the shoreline in pandemonium and another surround me at the railing of the restaurant, I watched as yet more men followed into the ocean – one running in with a kayak.

I watched them all become stuck in that same current – almost a riptide, without the ability to advance further with the undertow continuing to suck them in in spite of their fight – counting up to 8 heads at one time in the waves and undertow making up that one violent quagmire.

Searching for sight of Joe in the water, I took my eyes off of the boy for a second, with the worse thoughts imaginable running through my mind and hearing myself as I pleaded out loud in a mumble to be sure he heard me “Please God…don’t take him from me”, while my heart raced in fear for a mother’s child and for everyone trying to save him as well as themselves.

I watched as one staff member, who had charmingly and enthusiastically hosted the previous evening’s entertainment show at the resort, found his way back to the shore from the unrelenting battering he had just received from the force of the waves in his rescue attempt – stumbling toward the sand, in shock and exhaustion, passing by concerned onlookers…without the boy in his arms.

I shifted back to searching for Joe while watching the boy being tossed back and forth out in the ocean between the men in the pounding waves as they attempted to fight their exhaustion, yelling “Take him…I can’t get out”.

It was then that I spotted him.

I watched as he ominously teetered at the very edge of the whirlpool he had just fought his way out of, extending his long arm to the boy and reaching him – grabbing him by the arm and holding on to him for all he was worth – yanking the boy back through the furious waves, fighting their crashing and draw.

Now with his arm in a firm grasp around the boy’s body, I watched as he found the momentum in making short strides toward the shore by letting the waves carry them together, while digging his toe in the sand as each wave pushed him in again as I later learned – slowly gaining traction in fighting the force of the incredible undertow with each pounding – slowly and methodically – wave after wave – bit by bit.

I watched an inconsolable mother clutch her son in tears as the striped shorts reached the shore with her child still within the firm grasp of the large and secure hand that carried him there, placing her boy in her arms.

But just when I thought his role was over, I watched the stripes move further away from me yet again as he made his way back into the ocean.

The men had slowly begun to fight their way back with the aid of the kayak that just moments before had seen Joe place the lightweight boy on it until realizing they were fighting a losing battle against the crashing of the waves and removed him from it again.

I lost sight of Joe then as he went back out there.  And my horror in that instant, turned to panic.

I fought my way through the crowd now gathered on the stairs from the restaurant and ran down to the beach, where the other crowd had gathered and was growing – around something – someone.

As I got closer, I could see a figure through the openings of the cluster of legs that surrounded him – lying on the sand – limp, not moving – unconscious and exhausted.

With my heart exploding and holding my last breath, I searched for stripes through the feet of the crowd.  The shorts of the man lying on the sand were all dark. Could I be forgiven for my relief in that it wasn’t Joe?

I slowly turned my head away, afraid of what I might see when, like the stripes that for what must have been 20 minutes, continued to appear and fade from my view taking me on an emotional rollercoaster, they yet again moved away from me and the crowd.

Again, silently and anonymously but this time, down the beach – toward our towel-saved loungers from earlier in the day that still sat under our shade hut waiting for us. I followed, in tears. Thank you God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

When Joe and I lay on the lounger made for one but in that moment made for two, it was a silence between us unlike anything we’ve experienced in our life together thus far.

When I finally began to pull my thoughts together, see through the tears and finished my silent thanks to God, I asked Joe in my loss for words “Are you okay?”

“Yes” Joe replied. “I’m okay. But do you know what the boy said to me while I was trying to hold on to him?” he said, biting his lips together to hold them steady. “He said “I’m sorry Mister, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to go out that far. Am I going to die? I don’t want to die.”

Joe fought to hold his composure and continued…“I told him you’re not going to die. I’ve got you and I won’t let you go.” Joe said that as he made his way in closer to the shore with the boy and when he was finally able to feel his own feet firmly in the sand under the current, he told the boy that he could now stand upright. Joe said the boy by this time tho, was so panic stricken that he wasn’t listening – incapable of hearing anything. Joe reached down, taking the boy’s ankle in his hand while still holding him, and placed the boy’s foot on the ocean’s soft sand floor. ”Look” he said to the boy. “You’re standing. You’re okay.” he told him. Joe said it was at that moment that the boy fell apart in the realization that he had survived and began to cry.

In all of the chaos of those moments, I knew that no one would notice the stranger making his way in to shore with the boy. I knew that the boy’s mother, in her state of mind, wouldn’t realize as she hugged and kissed her son in relief, who it was exactly, if anyone, who had handed her her son. In her moment of horror and frenzy, I’m so sure that to her, her boy just miraculously appeared and nothing else in that moment mattered.

I knew that the men in the water wouldn’t have noticed while they fought for their own lives, the hotel guest who had entered back into the hell they were in – to help them get out – if he could.

I knew that no one would have noticed the man in stripes who had stopped at the crowd to see if those exhausted and lying on the beach were receiving medical attention or if he could offer CPR.

What I witnessed in that ordeal was so horrific. Watching a mother as her child was being tossed about in the waves holding him captive, knowing that he was running out of strength and that she was so close to losing him – watching these experienced lifeguards/long time staff members have absolutely no hope in hell against the powerful pull of the water – seeing their exhaustion set in as having been the first in, and their strength to fight, slowly begin to leave their bodies while they were still so far out there.

And then, watching the greatest love of my life and father to our children, at times distinguishable to me only by his striped shorts, disappear into the ocean and out of the water again with this child in his hands – appearing to me in those surreal moments, almost phantom- like.

And almost phantom like again, turn and disappear back into it for the 2nd time.

And then, to see him again, silently and undetected, walk down the beach, unnoticed to all – but me.

Proudly as always – strong, courageous, smart and unassuming, this bigger than life image to me in those moments…

Of bold white stripes on swim shorts – repeatedly appearing and disappearing from my view, is one image, I will never in my life ever, ever forget.

Stripes – they were well earned that day.

*** NB – Since that harrowing experience and searching for info on what it was exactly the boy and all of those men, my husband included, had been caught in, what I found closest to the description of it is termed a ‘rip current’. If caught in one, it is said to not go with your first instinct which is to fight it!  But rather, swim parallel to the shoreline until out of the current, and swim back to land at an angle.

If I ever go in again, I’ll keep that in mind.