Find a light, and just keep going towards it!

Sometimes in life, the only option we have, is to keep going

I was around 10 or eleven when I experienced for the first time that fear can kill you, if you don’t keep calm. South Africa, the country where I am from, and where I grew up, is big. It’s wild, with untouched mountains, rivers and lakes. Growing up in this environment, it was natural for us to spend most of our time outside in nature. Going fishing was one of our favourite things to do. Until that fateful day, when I learnt that sometimes going forward, is the only way out.

My dad, me and my brother went fishing at a nearby lake that day. There was nothing special about this day. This has been something that we have done hundreds of times before. We took enough food for the day, not planning to stay the night, and all the necessary equipment we would need to spend the day out in the wild, away from any technology. To put some context to the story, the year was 1990 - mobile phones were not a commercial item yet. There was no phone to bring with us. It was just us, our skills, our experience and the supplies.

My dad also grew up here. He is part of the ground. To say that he knows it like the back of his hand, would certainly be an understatement. He is completely at home in nature. To think that we might find ourselves in a situation where we wouldn’t be able to deal with it, was highly unlikely. Until it started raining, and raining, and raining.

The clouds above us roared with such might and violence, that the earth vibrated beneath our feet. The rain was so hard, that it felt like we were standing underneath a waterfall. We could only sit in the pickup truck, and wait this out. But it didn’t stop. It started getting dark.

By the time that it stopped raining, and we were finally able to leave the shelter of the pickup truck, we realised the absolute calamity that we were in. It had rained so much that all the ground around us had turned into what I can only describe as soft clay. The pickup truck had sunk so deep into the ground that the base frame of the pickup, the chassis, was level with the ground. All four wheels were swimming in clay, and we were stuck. We tried everything to get out of there that day. We tried to dig, tow, build, pushed, but nothing came even remotely close to getting us out of the clay.

We could not spend the night here without risking hypothermia. The rain was threatening to come back at any moment, and we had no warm close with us. This was a day trip, not an overnight camping trip. What I haven’t mentioned up until now, is that fishing season in South Africa is during the winter. In some secluded areas in South Africa, the temperature can easily drop into the high negatives during night time in winter. Without the proper protection and supplies, spending the night in the cold and wet, could prove life threatening.

It was already dark when my dad said it:

"Marcel, you need to go and look for help!"

I remember it like it was yesterday, the mixed storm of confusion and fear running inside my veins at that moment. You see, we were in the middle of nowhere. When I say "nowhere", I mean that this could have just as well been a dead zone in the middle of one of the world wars - there was nothing around us within a 40 kilometer radius, no houses, no public phones, and no shops, just us. Our only way of getting out of here, did not exist anymore. Thinking back now, I do understand the logic my father applied when he worked out the plan that got us out of that situation. But at that time, and in my 10 year old body, you could have just as well told me that I would have to eat fire, or fight a lion, that’s how impossible the task seemed to me.

Leaving to go and search for help over land was not an option. One could barely put one foot in front of the other without sinking immediately into the ground about 3 feet deep. That, and we were surrounded by mountains, and the road we had taken to get here, which was also our exit, was completely flooded. The only way out was across the water. The same water so vast, that you can't see the other side. It was already night at this stage.

We had a canoe with us, and there was only enough space for one. It was not big enough for the three of us. My dad could not leave me and my brother alone while he went looking for help (my brother is 3 years younger than me). It was up to me. Up to me, 10 year old Marcel, standing in the middle of nowhere, terrified of deep water, and in the darkness of night.

My instructions were clear:

“find a light, and just keep going towards it”

Thinking back on this experience today, it sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel, “and the young boy stood there, terrified at the thought of what lay ahead, knowing that where he is about to go, there is only darkness” This is how I felt. I was terrified. 

I knew that this was the only hope we had of getting out of here. So I went. Into the dark, into the unknown.

I remember trying to make as little noise as possible while rowing, not to attract anything that my paranoid young mind might manifest out of the darkness. All I could think was that there is something lurking underneath me, in the great depths of this darkness, that it knows that I’m there, in its territory, and that it was watching me. There was darkness all around me, as far as I could see; there was only darkness, and water. I thought of dying that night, how I would drown if something happened and I ended in the water, how I would end up in a giant fish’s mouth, and dragged to the bottom of the cold, dark deep. At some stage my dad’s voice started echoing in my mind;

“Marcel, find a light, and just keep going towards it”. 

The strange thing was that even though I was nearly paralyzed with fear, I kept going. I somehow knew that if I just kept going, this will pass.

The logic is clear, where there’s light, there’s life, and of course my father knew this. He knew that this particular lake had an around the clock water monitor official, whose job it was to live by the lake wall, and monitor the dam. He also knew that this was our way out.

Then it happened. After rowing for what felt like hours, in the far distance, I started seeing a light in the darkness! It was dim and very far away, but I knew now what my dad meant. I found the light, and nothing was going to stop me now from getting to it. Out of nowhere my fear turned into drive and determination, for now I had an endpoint in sight, and all I had to do was reach it.

The rest as they say is history. I made it to the light, and there was life. It was a very polite old couple, who gave me something warm to drink, and let me use their old landline phone to call my mother. She arranged the rescue party, and we were saved.

The Lesson

Sometimes in life we will find ourselves in situations, where all seems lost. Where our fear will try to make us give up and quit. Moments where we are the ones tasked with the responsibility to get through this, when we are the way out of the situation.

In moments like this, all we can truly do is to just keep going in a direction, any direction, until we find something we can focus on, and then go towards that.

As long as we keep going, the difficult and hard moment we are in, will pass.

Take Care,

Marcel

PS: If you find yourself in a situation like this currently, and you don't know where to turn to, connect with me. I can help you.

#marcelcoetzee #keepmovingforward #motivational