KNOWING • Part 2: Interpreting Your History
Jake’s story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit. Warm, grounded, and always eager to connect, he is the kind of person who makes you feel like an old friend the moment you meet him. His love for the ocean and the natural world has always been a steady thread through his life. But it was the sea that would also bring him to the edge of himself, and to the beginning of something new.
We first met Jake in a season of deep grief. While deep sea diving in the Florida Keys, Jake and his brother-in-law became separated from their anchored boat. As they tried to swim toward it, a storm rolled in fast, fierce, and unrelenting. Ten-foot waves surged. The storm swallowed the light. In the chaos, they were torn apart.
Alone in the water for hours, Jake eventually found a buoy and tied himself to it. Not just to survive, but to ensure his body would be found. When night fell, so did the next wave of challenges. Stinging jellyfish. Dehydration. The relentless pull of the sea. Hours passed. Hope thinned. Then, far in the distance, a light appeared. A coast guard ship. Jake reached for the flashlight clipped to his dive suit, raised it, and shined it toward the night. The boat turned.
When they pulled him aboard, exhausted and barely able to speak, his first question was not about himself. It was about his brother-in-law. The answer was devastating. He had not been found.
The trauma Jake carried from that day left deep wounds. PTSD. Guilt. Grief. But slowly, in the aftermath, Jake began to do something courageous. He turned inward. He examined the beliefs he held about his worth. He questioned the stories from his childhood. He began to piece together who he was and who he wanted to be. What started as survival became self-discovery.
Over time, Jake transformed. He returned to school and earned an engineering degree. He prioritized not just his emotional health, but his physical well-being. He even returned to diving, reclaiming a space that once held only pain.
Jake’s story reminds us that we are never finished. That even in our darkest moments, we can choose healing. We can choose to grow. His transformation was not about forgetting the past. It was about learning how to live with it and letting it become the soil for something new.
When we face our pain with honesty and care, we begin to rewrite the narrative. Jake did. And through that choice, he not only found himself again, but began helping others do the same.