The Tribune

We had all hoped for a different call. When Captain Clayton Patterson Smith’s plane went missing between Exuma and Nassau on Sunday, his wife, Lauralynn, kept trying his phone. Pat had told his family he expected to be home that night. For days, people across The Bahamas held on to the hope that someone out searching would find him alive and that his wife and children would hear his voice again.

Now comes word that human remains believed to be Captain Pat’s have been found in the wreckage. Formal identification is still to come. For the family who waited and for the people of Stuart Manor who know and love him, it appears to be a sorrowful end to a search we had prayed would end in rescue.

“I pray that he is alive,” Lauralynn said while the search was under way. Many people who had never met her shared that prayer. Those of us who followed the search from a distance will go back to our ordinary lives. For Lauralynn and her children, an ordinary Sunday was one on which Pat came home. It is hard to put into words the loss they now face.

In the midst of these sad days, we have seen the best of us as a people. When Pat’s son went out in a speedboat to look for his father, other Bahamians went looking too. His sister, a Defence Force officer, joined the search. Private boaters put out to sea alongside the organised rescue effort. They knew the waters. They knew how hard it would be to spot someone in a choppy sea. And they knew that if it were their father out there, they would want somebody to keep looking.

We owe our thanks to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association, the US Coast Guard and every volunteer who helped. We think especially of the divers, including Captain Pat's son who went down to examine the wreckage. It fell to them to do a difficult thing for a family waiting ashore.

In Stuart Manor, people have their own stories of Captain Plywood as he was affectionately called. Only weeks ago, he was talking about growing up in Bucktown, about his boat, Captain Gene, and about Bahamian sloop sailing. The regatta desk postponed its conclave while the search was under way, and people in the sailing community understood. One of their own was missing.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Lauralynn, her children, Pat’s sister and the community of Stuart Manor as they come to grips with this tragedy. In the weeks ahead, there will be days when the family welcomes company and days when they would prefer to be alone. There will be a meal to carry over, an errand to run and, long after Pat’s name has left the headlines, a story about him that somebody who loved him would give a great deal to hear.

When Pat’s son went out to look for his father, he did not have to go alone. May that same kindness see his family through the days ahead.