STOKES COUNTY, N.C. — Five years after Jacob Line drowned at Belews Lake, his mother's message to all is to wear life jackets when on the water.
Jacob and his friend Pat Bohenstiel went out on the lake on April 17, 2014 and drowned.
"I mean its just unbelievable that its been five years because my heart just feels like its been yesterday," Jacob's mother Lois Line said.
Search teams found Pat's body 20 days later, but Jacob's didn't surface for 66 days.
"You don't ever expect to bury your child. To the very core of my being, it doesn't get any easier," Line said.
The pair made a costly mistake by not wearing a life jacket. It's why Line cautions everyone to put one on before getting on the water.
"It's important because you are important to someone else," she said. " Those little minutes that they didn't take time to put those on, it cost them everything. And it cost both families pain and grief that is lifelong."
Although Jacob's no longer here, his mother says he's impossible to forget.
"I think of him every day, more than once a day. There's many many reminders of him every day," Line said.
Those including Jacob's dog Mary who she now cares for and her grandson Kent Jacob named after his Uncle Jacob.
"I hate that he has to learn about his uncle form a picture on a wall and the stories that we tell him, but I'm glad that he's in our lives and that he fills them with joy," Line said.
Both victims families helped raise money to buy expensive sonar equipment for the Madison-Rockingham Rescue squad.
The $60,000 dollar piece of equipment helps quickly locate things underwater.
Chief Rusty Gray says it's been used in emergencies in North and South Carolina.