Alec Frydman was a young man in search of himself, and that journey led him from prep school to surfer dude to a commercial fishing boat. Unfortunately for Alec, his maiden voyage led right into a storm, a turbulence that sank the ship and killed the captain, leaving him alone and adrift at sea for two weeks. His tiny life raft was his floating island. Large ships sailed past without noticing him. You can read the whole story in Lost at Sea, (The Atlantic, June 2025).
Many stories of survival contain some of the same themes: Striving against the forces of nature, hoping for rescue, mobilizing inner reserves one did not know. Alec describes his experience in very liminal terms, as the state of being in which all past coordinates are absent and future resolution unknown. His awakenings are substantial. In his own words:
“With nothing to mark the hours, each day felt like it continued far more than 24. I remembered reading about Franciscan monks and how they ordered their days around work and prayer, and I decided I needed to devise my own routine.”
“I prayed often, always aloud. At first, pleas for rescue. Over and over, I asked God to save me – not my soul, but my physical self … I apologized for every past transgression I could remember…”
“By the end of my first week on the raft, I knew that my distress signal would never be answered, that the emergency positioning beacon had failed to transmit. I was alone, and I was terribly, terribly thirsty. What sense was there in suffering if all it meant was postponing the inevitable?”
“I had strange, vivid dreams. Then I didn’t dream at all so much as hallucinate. Even when I was awake, I had experiences that I couldn’t explain… (the raft) brought me a sense of peace I had never felt. It wasn’t great company – it was silent and invisible, after all – but for the first time I felt like something, someone, was there to witness my continued existence.”
“I lost track of time completely. The sea grew calm. I was going to die. I didn’t look forward to it. I wanted to see my mom and dad again. A peace I hadn’t known to look for found me. Where before I dreaded sunsets, sometimes I found them beautiful.”
“I’m grateful that I survived, but I don’t know why I did, or what it means. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. When you’re lost at sea, certain you’re going to die in a life raft, you ask, Why me? and receive no answer. When you’re rescued and restored to life you ask, Why me? and still there is no answer.”
Which is often the answer in liminal time and space.
Recent Comments