🛩️ A Captain’s Ride
In Honor of My Brother, and the Ship I Still Sail
by, Samantha Syrnich TLC
© 2025. All rights reserved.

They told him,
“You’ll die if you get in a wreck in that thing.”
And he just smiled.
Because some of us were never made to play it safe.
Some of us are born with fire in the chest,
steel in the bones,
and thunder in the blood.

My brother was one of those men.

He was born in 1976—the same year Gordon Lightfoot released
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
That wasn’t just coincidence.
It was legacy waiting to rise.

He lived like a man with a NASCAR driver’s heart—
fast, loyal, instinctive,
the kind of man who wouldn’t abandon ship
even when the sky darkened and the water turned cruel.

He served in the U.S. Air Force,
but he could’ve just as easily been handed a racing suit or a pair of wings.
His soul knew motion.
His life was velocity and virtue,
wrapped in quiet grit.

He would’ve adored that old steel Chevy—
its lowered stance, its unapologetic growl,
its refusal to be anything but what it is.
Not just a truck—
a captain’s ride.

And like any true captain,
he knew:
“A good captain always goes down with the ship.”

That line?
It’s not just a lyric.
It’s a code I’ve carried too.
Because I, too, stayed at the helm
long after the others let go.

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes,
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
I do.
I’ve measured time in silence.
I’ve waited without rescue.
I’ve breathed through storms that left no names behind.

Still—I sail.

He had two phoenixes tattooed on his arms—
one for him,
one for me.
We burned.
We rose.
We remain.

🎧 Watch & Listen – Gordon Lightfoot: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1976)

This is for him—
For his Air Force courage.
For his NASCAR soul.
For every road he never got to race.
For the silence he carried
and the power he left behind.

And this is also for our grandfather—
A man who helped start NASCAR with the greats.
He owned sprint cars,
motorcycle lots,
car lots,
meat markets,
and the music lounge at Pike Place
where legends flew in to sing under his roof.

He was a silent political helper in the better days of Washington State—
when dignity guided decisions,
not ego.

His house stood proud,
with racehorses galloping across the field beside it,
and water fountains flanking the entryway like sentinels of old.

And I was there—
holding his hand
as he took his final breaths.
It was me who stayed.
It was me who planned his memorial.
And yet, before the soil even settled,
everything was stolen.

Not a single heirloom left for the one
who honored him with presence,
who carried the grief
with grace and grit.

All I ever wanted
was his watch—
the one that marked time across generations,
from boardroom to racetrack to front porch prayers.

But even that was taken.

And still—I remember.
Still—I stand.

Because I am his granddaughter.
Because I am my brother’s sister.
Because my name carries fire,
and my spirit refuses to be erased.

So this is for me too—
the one still at the helm,
still writing in storms,
still holding on
in the name of every man
who never stopped steering.

⸻

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Signed in blue ink,
for the boy born of thunder,
and the man whose timepiece never should have left my hands,
Samantha Syrnich TLC
🕊️🔥💙⌚🛩️🛻🏁

[The Captain’s Chevy https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16wajw811v/?mibextid=wwXIfr%5D