If I repeat myself, it’s because it’s important to me. I also have a shit short term memory. And last, the more I say it, the more I process it.

Exactly 3 years ago today, I got up around 7am and checked my ex and Beck’s location on Life360. It looked like they were still on the lake. Tried calling, but I knew the service was spotty, so I continued my morning. This was totally normal.

But why didn’t my intuition tell me. Why didn’t I have some kind of inner knowing.

They should have been on the road about 7am at the latest to get home, change, and get up to the mountain property for some hunting. But if the bites were big, they’d stay longer. Fishing always trumps hunting. I had received a pic around 11pm the night before of a monster fish that Beck snagged. So, not shocked they were still there.

I got the kids out the door to walk to grandmas. It was Friday. Harvest Holiday. No school. But I was getting ready for work. I was blow drying my hair. The doorbell rang. I didn’t hear it but saw a Ring notification pop up. I was home alone and the millennial in me doesn’t answer the door if I’m not expecting someone or something.

My phone rang it was a family friend. Who was supposed to go hunting and also happens to be a police officer. My first thought was, “hey they aren’t home to go up yet”. He asked me to come to the door. Maybe he had something to leave for them.

This is the SECOND time in my life someone in uniform knocked on MY door to give ME bad news. Like something out of a movie. The first time it was a Navy Sailor in his dress blues, holding his cap in his hand. Wild.

This day, he wasn’t actually in uniform but I immediately sensed the officer hat was on. I actually can’t imagine what that drive to my house must have been like for him. I’m also so grateful that my kids were at grandmas house.

There was an accident and they can’t find Beckem.

What does that mean.

Accident on the road on the way home? Can’t find him? Where could he possibly be?

His dad was unconscious.

How? Where? What? What? WHAT does it mean.

There was an accident on the water. The boat capsized. This conversation was probably 3 minutes but felt like slow motion in my head. Okay, so where is Beck. Did he swim to shore? No one’s found him on the shore yet? His dad is unconscious? Is he going to make it? Head injury?

They can’t find Beckem because he drowned. What. WHAT. NO. “Beckem is dead”.

NO.

I’ve described in a previous post the guttural scream that came out of my mouth. That didn’t sound like me. The weight of it all pulling me to the floor.

As I write this, it doesn’t feel real. Denial creeps in every once in a while, still.

I run upstairs to grab shoes. We are going straight to the hospital in Richfield. I can’t drive. I am nothing. The black envelops me. It’s keeping me safe. It feels like the deepest, darkest, corner of hell.

I call my work bff to tell her. I can’t say it. Died, dead, drowned, any variation will not come out of my mouth. That reality is stuck in quicksand. I say, “the boys were in a boating accident, they can’t find Beckem, I’m leaving for the hospital, I’ll keep you updated”. She offered to take care of the littles, the dogs, anything. I am slowly spiraling.

We get in my car. We have to tell my in-laws. I sit in the car as they come out to hear the news. As soon as I see them, I jump out and wrap my arms around them. No words, except… “please please please don’t tell the kids yet”. Please.

What an enormous ask. To expect them to sit in grief and shock and mourning while my kids run around eating grilled cheeses and playing Lego’s. 8 and 5. Doing things 8 and 5 year olds do.

An hour and a half in the car. My hands go numb, my face goes numb. I’m hyperventilating. I feel like I am going to die. I wish I could die and trade him places. Like, he could hand me the baton and come back. I’m disassociating. It’s like I’m sitting in the backseat watching myself. My face is blank. And then I start talking. I can’t stop talking. I’m trying to make sense of it all. None of the words I string together can fix it. How can he actually be gone. How. He’s the toughest kid I know. Mentally, physically. From this moment forward, I have to talk about him in past tense? How can that be real. He has assignments in his backpack he has to turn in when the holiday break is over. What a stupid holiday. This holiday doesn’t exist anywhere else. He should be sitting in class.

Calls start coming in. I’m reaching for more information. I think I talked to my dad. He had already gotten the news. My sister calls me to tell me her and my parents are on their way to the hospital too. My brother in law is just ahead of us. I think.

We get to the hospital. They are expecting us. They try to make me put a mask on. What. I can barely breathe. A nurse behind the counter gives a look to the other nurses, they don’t say anything about the mask again.

I walk into the hospital room and drop everything in my hands, phone, keys, water bottle. My ex-husband is awake. Everyone leaves the room. We both scream. He’s coughing up blood with barely any voice from yelling for help for hours.

He tells me everything. My body writhing in physical pain. For him. For us. For our family.

This is my whole world. Imploding.

I learn they are still searching for him. I have to leave that hospital not knowing when I’ll get to see Beck again. I can’t go home. I can’t go there. I muster the courage to run in, past his shoes sitting by the door, past his backpack, past all of our family pictures, and grab an extra set of clothes for all of us. We are staying at my parents house. I cannot stay in my home. It’s too hard.

I’m talking with the sheriff through out the rest of the day. He tells me about the teams of dive crews on scene. He says they are searching into the night and that they won’t stop.

The kids arrive. They know something is wrong. Their dad is still in hospital clothes, because some of his were cut off of him to get him warm. We tell them. I see it in their eyes, the hurt. We all break down. I don’t think little brother believed me for a bit. I don’t think he could believe his hero was gone. I had to gently say it a couple different ways. I remember them saying, “what?”.

I’m relentlessly texting the sheriff about the search.

Shock. Everyone is in shock. Our entire family. No one has words.

The next morning comes and I’m texting the sheriff before 7am. The dive crews had just come out of the water to eat breakfast and more crews were on their way with better equipment.

I have to wait stretches of time to get responses, because his service at the lake was spotty.

Around 3pm something tells me to pull up my Life360 map and see if their locations show their path on the lake.

Both show the exact loop. I immediately start sending screenshots to the sheriff. I pull up GPS coordinates. Screen record their path until it gets to where their phones were dropped in the water. I send it all to him.

There are no coincidences. A girl I went to high school with has a husband on one of the search and rescue crews. She messages me. It turns out that communication is a bit slow to get to each dive team because they’ve come from all over and have different leads. So I start sharing everything with her, that I had shared with the sheriff. Her husbands team hadn’t seen the coordinates yet. He helps get the info passed around.

At about 6:30 or 7ish I get a CALL from the sheriff. I willl NEVER FORGET his voice saying, “we got your boy, he’s coming home”. I will never ever ever forget. Our family has been huddled around us all day and before I get off the phone, I get to tell them that they are bringing him up to the surface right now. The collective sighs of relief were deafening.

It was the most bittersweet moment I’ll ever have in my life. No, there is nothing sweet about it BUT that we know where he is and that we’ll get to see him. The weather was really bad that day and night. He was kept in Richfield before he could go to the examiner in SLC.

He was found at a depth of 106 ft.

106 ft

I have so much respect and admiration for everyone that worked in the water, the snow, the rain, the cold, to make sure he came home. I could never repay those that made that happen. What incredibly selfless and valiant people. Several reached out after, all of them dads, and expressed that was their why. Grateful can’t begin to describe it.

I think that’s where I stop today.

It blows my mind that I’m not the only person to have this experience. My family isn’t unique to losing a son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin. We’re just now a part of a club we never asked to join. As unfair as it is and how I wish I coulda woulda shoulda… I can’t. Grief like ours has been going on since the beginning of time. It’s what makes us human. The deep connections we make with each other that make death feel unfathomable at times. Never take those connections for granted. Tell everyone that you love, that you love them and tell them often.

Beckem was brave and adventurous and full of love. He told all his friends he loved them. As a family, constant I love you’s. There wasn’t a day of his life that he wasn’t truly living. Always moving. Always planning the next great adventure. I admire him for that. It was sometimes exhausting to keep up with Hah! But I love him for his outlook on life. He packed so much life into those 13 1/2 years.

The amount of times I would sarcastically say to him, “is this just Beckem’s world?” and he would say, “well yeah” and laugh it off…

It really was Beckem’s world and we were just living in it. We are all better for having him.

Love you, mean it.