Swimming for Jack

To motivate myself, I started working in the pool with a swim coach. Coach Stu was the person who first asked if I had ever considered open water swimming. A few months later I did my first one-mile swimming race in the Santa Monica Bay. I was hooked by the challenge, the excitement and the rush trying something new. I think of Jack every day, but taking on this new challenge helped me come back into the world—at least in part.

This was how I came to be standing in a wetsuit on a ferry anchored just east of Alcatraz on June 4, 2017, preparing to jump into 59-degree water. I was accompanied by my cousin Robin Forestier-Walker. Robin had suggested we do the Sharkfest Swim to raise money in Jack’s memory. I was hesitant at first to tie so much emotion to an already challenging athletic endeavor, but I’m glad we did; the fundraising was a remarkable experience.

We raised over $22,000 for NAMI from over 140 donors around the world. In fact, the swim became the largest ever “Do It Yourself” fundraising event in NAMI’s history. Along with thousands of dollars in donations came messages of support that filled my family’s heart, including from people who shared their experiences with mental illness and how they found help and hope through NAMI.

I finished the mile-and-a-half swim in 50 minutes—541 out of 830 swimmers. I’m 59-years-old, and almost every swimmer who finished after me was younger; that is all the bragging rights I need as a competitive swimmer.

But, as a father, I came out of the water and embraced my wife Connie and my daughter Nora, and I held up the photo of Jack. My family was together again, if only symbolically, in this moment of joy, exhaustion, and sadness. I wept for Jack and for the millions of others who live with a mental illness.

Several years ago, I wrote a poem about taking up open water swimming after Jack’s death. It talks about the challenges of swimming in cold water, the taste of seawater in my mouth, how I would ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” But then, as the poem says, I find the rhythm in my stroke, see the sun flashing off the water, and feel the joy of entering the water and reentering life after loss. The poem concludes,

I know there is only one way to get to this place.
You have to step off the land, and into the water.
In spite of everything.
Because of everything.
I have to step off the land, and into the water.

For more on Keith’s swim and to learn more about Jack’s life, visit https://donate.nami.org/HonoringJack