Crossing Wide Water: My Brother, the Sailor
-Susan Cook-
My 77 year old brother is, still, and has been his whole life, a sailor. His boat “Significant Other”, a J-24 racing yacht will carry two. But, when he races, he is the captain and the boat carries five. He and the boat have sailed many times in many places where, yes, the water is wide. This week, he and the crew of the “Significant Other” are competing in the J-24 World Racing Championships in the waters off Newport, Rhode Island.
There are two times, when I know he’s been to places where the water is wide. His 13 year old son died in a car accident in 1987. Eight years later, on a back country road, his car was rammed head-on by a young driver who, I suppose, was afraid of being late for school and passed a stopped school bus. The boy driver died immediately. My brother lived, with almost every part of his body broken and a severe head injury.
He was determined in his months and months of rehabilitation that he would drive again and that he would sail. In all of this, there has only been one summer he couldn’t sail- when his hip, rebuilt after the crash, was made more fragile by a persistent bone infection. He couldn’t get a hip replacement until it went away. So he stayed off the water that year. He forgave the doctor who ordered him to stay off the boat. But he has forgiven many things in his life, the boy who passed the bus, the rainy circumstance that led to his son’s death. Lots of things, abandonment, “bum” deals.
He sailed the next year and now his crew are racing in very wide water, seriously.
I’ve always admired him. He’s done things I haven’t liked but for some reason I never cast any moral judgment. Who could? I know he’s always done whatever he could to make things better, never tried to take more than he was due. He’s forgiven lost victories and defeats. And after all, the water is wide. And he has always been a sailor, even when his body prevented it. So I’d like you to root for him this week please, along with me , crossing wide, probably rough water, to the finish line, in his boat , his “Significant Other” . The Sail Number is USA 4177.
