Off the breezy waters of Oyster Bay Harbor, John Kennedy grabbed a shovel and moved the first mounds of dirt where a bronze bayman statue will stand at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park.

It was a symbolic moment — one more than four years in the making and more than five years after his son, Michael Kennedy, died at age 57 while shellfishing in Long Island Sound. The memorial will honor baymen and those who died working in the arduous profession.

The project was "a dream that became a reality," said Kennedy, 89, vice president of the Baymens Heritage Association.

The statue will feature a bayman pulling up a haul of shellfish into his boat. A one-legged seagull, a nod to Michael Kennedy, will be part of the memorial. Kennedy said a one-legged seagull would come flying into his son’s boat

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