WASHINGTON — Zamari Wilson was just 12 but he'd already launched a business from his home in Southeast D.C. The eighth-grader was applying to the prestigious Duke Ellington School of the Arts and dreamed of being a professional artist or a musician.
Now Brenda Wilson is preparing to bury her son.
Zamari drowned just before Independence Day at the end of a family vacation in Virginia Beach. His mom is hoping his death serves as a cautionary tale for all of us.
"He did love me. He pulled the shells out and gave them to me one at a time. I'm going to keep them forever," Brenda Wilson said Friday, paging through pictures on her phone of the seashells her baby gathered and carefully arranged on a beach towel for her.
She has so many haunting pictures of a child who was so full of promise.
"That's when we first got there at the hotel. He was excited about the vacation," she said, smiling at a photo of Zamari wheeling his luggage inside.
He loved the water: ocean, pool, lake -- whatever. His mom says he was a pretty good swimmer.
"There's the beach itself," she said, looking at a shot of the stretch of sand where the family had been so happy before he died.
Just as they were getting ready to come home, Zamari took one last jump in the water near the hotel on Shore Drive on the Chesapeake Bay side of Virginia Beach.
Family members were watching from the shore.
"They saw his arms flailing in the water. Trying to get help... Don't know if it was a current or a rip tide or if he stepped the wrong way," said his mother.
Emergency crews searched for three and half hours before they found his body.
"I'm still in shock. I can't sleep. I can't eat. Hopefully, it will pass," Brenda Wilson said, pausing to catch her breath.
There are no lifeguards on that stretch of beach. She's hoping Zamari's death will make a difference.
"I want a campaign to get more lifeguards at the beach," she said.
For the people headed to the beach this summer, she has some pretty simple advice: "Wear a lifejacket. That's it. Make sure you wear a lifejacket and you're where a lifeguard is on duty. Watch your kids. And adults."
Another man drowned within hours and just a mile from where Zamari died.
Friends and classmates will hold a candlelight vigil for Zamari Monday night at Elliot Hine Middle School, where the principal called him a joy, a talented artist and musician.
His mom is trying to raise money on GoFundMe for the funeral, a meal for his friends to remember him and a burial plot.
The funeral is slated for Saturday, July 16 at Precious Memories Funeral Home, 3447 14th St. NW, Washington, DC. The wake is at 10 a.m and the service is at 11 a.m.
"He dreamed of being able to save the family, to make enough money so we all wouldn't have to work ever again," his mother said.
With no one to save him, Zamari's dreams are now gone with the tide.