Living without them
Clay and Jewel Floch of Valleyford have spent the past five years acclimating to life in a landscape that no longer includes their children.
On Aug. 27, 2001, their sons, Ryan, 20, and Drew, 19, along with their cousin James Starr, 19, set off for a short fishing trip with their grandfather, well-known Valley pastor Tom Starr, 67. None returned.
Like most young adults, Jewel Floch said, her sons “Were rotten about phoning,” so the Flochs weren’t worried when a couple of days went by without a word.
On Aug. 30, Starr’s boat was discovered capsized, with no trace of the fishing party.
Friends found a private plane for the family and flew them to La Push, Wash., on Aug. 31.
“I think I still had hope until I walked on the beach,” Clay Floch said. He met the search team and saw the exhaustion in its members’ eyes.
He looked at the jagged shoreline and vast ocean and knew his sons weren’t coming home.
The intensive search revealed nothing – except that the boat had capsized for unknown reasons. As they returned home, Clay Floch looked out the plane window.
“I remember thinking the world is rolling along, but our lives have just totally crashed. Nothing will ever be the same.”
On Clay’s birthday, Sept. 3, they got a call from Oregon. A research vessel had found Drew’s body 55 miles from where the group set out.
Two days later another call came. The bodies of Ryan and James had been found.
The cause of death for the three young men was hypothermia.
Still missing is the body of Starr who had been the pastor of one of Spokane Valley’s largest churches, Valley Fourth Memorial, for more than 20 years before taking over a smaller congregation at Maranatha Bible Church in Otis Orchards in 1995.
“From the beginning I could say, ‘I know I can trust God,’ ” Jewel Floch said. The couple had a strong Christian faith that they would need in the weeks and months to come.
Ryan and Drew had been raised in Odessa, Wash., and were well-known in town. Ryan loved basketball, and had just graduated from Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake.
Drew preferred football and was attending Big Bend when he died. He was the family comedian and loved to make his mom laugh.
Both brothers enjoyed fishing and hunting with their dad.
The brothers’ friends filled the house when they heard the news.
“Odessa was wonderful to us,” Jewel said.
Bill and Paula Starr, James’ parents, were enveloped by James’ friends in Spokane as well. But still, Paula Starr said, “We will never be whole again.”
She described their loss as being “Like a wound you put a Band-Aid on. It heals but leaves a scar.”
James’ younger brother, Christian, was supposed to go on the fishing trip but had a previous commitment. He feels his brother’s death made his own calling clear to him.
“I feel like God spared me for a reason,” he said. Christian currently is attending Calvary Chapel Bible College in Post Falls.
For Betty Starr, losing her husband of 46 years was devastating.
“My whole focus had always been his ministry,” she said.
“Without the Lord, none of us would have made it.”
At first the Flochs were consumed with why. Why did this happen? But no answer could ever compensate for the loss of their two children.
“You survive because there is a tomorrow and you’re still here to live it,” Jewel Floch said. “You survive step by step, inch by inch, moment by moment.”
Three years after the deaths, the Flochs moved to Valleyford to be near family. They still get together with their sons’ friends each August to celebrate the lives of Ryan and Drew.
Bill and Paula Starr find comfort in James’ friends as well. Each year on James’ birthday, they invite all his friends out to dinner.
“I guess that’s how we move forward,” Paula said. “We hold on to the memories and keep moving.”
The family takes comfort in the belief that they will be reunited with their loved ones in heaven.
“I look at it like they went on extended vacations,” Bill Starr said. “I’ll see them again.”
Betty Starr is trying to move forward as well. She works with the Widow’s Might program.
The program has 140 widows who meet regularly and share a meal. Still, “It doesn’t keep me quite as busy as being Tom’s wife,” she said.
The holidays are difficult for the Flochs.
“We don’t put a tree up anymore,” Clay Floch said. “The trimmings and trappings of Christmas have lost their charm.”
Jewel Floch commemorates Christmas by making angel ornaments for her sons’ friends.
She recently heard a sermon on the book of Job that resonated with her. The preacher said, “I know enough about God to trust Him in the things I don’t know.”
These words have become a touchstone as she navigates this landscape of loss. Five years after the boating accident that took her sons, her father and her nephew, she said, “I never say it gets easier. I say it gets different.”