One more, and it's a hard one. Out there on South Manitou — the island you can see from the dune — there was a lighthouse, and a keeper named Aaron Sheridan, and I want to tell you what happened to his family.
He'd already given plenty. He came home from the Civil War with an arm that didn't work properly, and he took the light out on the island — a job for a man who could still be useful. He and his wife Julia raised their children out there, on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan, keeping a light for the ships in the passage.
In March of eighteen seventy-eight they were crossing in a small sailboat with their infant. Their two older children were on shore, watching them come.
March on this lake is as bad as it gets — the water is barely above freezing and the squalls come out of nothing. A squall took the boat over. And the two children on the beach watched their mother, their father, and their baby brother go into the water, and there was not one thing on God's earth they could do about it.
None of the three came out.
Now, there are stories about that island — people who've stayed out there talk about voices in the tower, and about hearing a life-saving crew that isn't there shouting at each other to hurry up. I'll pass those along for what they're worth, which may not be much. Folks tell stories about lonely islands.
But I'd rather you carried the true part. Two children stood on that beach in March and watched the lake take their whole family, and then somebody had to go up the tower that night and light the lamp anyway, because there were ships out in the dark. That is what these lights cost. Not the storms in the paintings. That.