Julie Ann Duke

Julie Duke is kind, thoughtful, loving, and caring. She is also smart, candid, and will tell you what you need to hear, even if you can’t appreciate it at the time. She touched many lives, and those she touched, are better for it. 

She is a sister, a wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and to me, she is my aunt, Aunt Julie, and she saved my life.

Aunt Julie is the younger sister of my father, David Bush. In the 70s and 80s, our families spent our summer vacations and almost every weekend it wasn’t snowing, and a few that were, at Willard Bay, Pineview, Rockport, Starvation, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, or any body of water that you could water ski on.

I can’t recall if anyone had a camera on our trips, but if they did, there would be thousands of photos of smiling sun kissed faces, boats, skis, tents, campers, motorhomes, horseshoes, motorcycles, food, and one little kid fishing. That would be me.

The smell of smoke from the fire, dinner cooking on the grill, mosquito repellent and the sound of Johnny Cash coming from the 8-track in Uncle Kenny’s truck. The laughter of my sister Cindy and my cousins Brent, and Jennifer.

These are the sights, smells and sounds of summer for me as a kid. Good memories, good times, family time that I will cherish forever.

Aunt Julie loved to water ski. She would get up early to be the first one out on the smooth, undisturbed water of the morning. She is one of the most elegant water skiers I have ever seen. She made it look effortless, cutting back and forth across the boat’s wake, making wide, controlled turns in the open, glass-like water, finally releasing the rope, and gliding smoothly into the shallows. The huge beaming smile on her face said it all. She was where she loved to be, doing what she loved to do.

My version of water skiing was not so elegant or effortless, so we will leave it right there and just say that my fishing skills were developing nicely.

One beautiful, sunny day at Willard Bay, when I was 7 or 8 years old, the fishing was slow, so I grabbed a big inner tube and headed for the water. I was by myself, but this wasn’t unusual. I was good swimmer from all the weekends at the lakes and countless days spent in Ken and Nish’s pool. I floated around on the tube and when I started to drift out a little far, I slipped my legs into the water, holding on to the tube with my small arms, and began to kick back toward the shore.

I lost my grip. I slipped through the tube, into the water. When I came back up, I couldn’t get my arms up high enough and back around the tube.  The tube slipped away from me.  Even though I was a good swimmer, the sight of the tube slipping away, the water too deep to stand, the shoreline a bit far away, I must have panicked. I began flailing my arms and legs, which didn’t seem to help much, bobbing up and down in the water and it hit me, I was going to drown. I flailed harder.

Just when I thought it was over for me, I heard a familiar voice, and as I bobbed up, I saw my Aunt Julie running down the beach, into the water, swimming out to me, and I was safely in her arms in what seemed like an instant. She brought me back to shore, back to my mother, where I was wrapped in a warm towel and loving arms.

The whole incident must have only lasted a minute, but the memory and sense of fear, doom, then safety and love have stayed with me forever.

After the heroic rescue, Aunt Julie seemed to be of Superhero proportions to me, and I was always confused by the pillow she had on the seat of the car she drove. It wasn’t until I was about 12 and I passed her in height, that I realized how petite she was. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in confidence, personality, and integrity. Not a day has gone by, that I didn’t look up to her.

When I said my Aunt Julie saved my life, she really did. She has always been there for me, never once forgot to call me on my birthday, and I will miss her so much.