These images link easily in the passions my dad has shown in all the years I have known him. He is in the hospital now, Cancer has him gripped in pain and the failing of his organs. I will likely not see him again in this life but know that he is at peace with the idea of saying our hellos again in another time and place. Here is a letter I placed in a Facebook group started to allow us to begin sharing our memories while he is still here and may be able to enjoy some of them with us.
A LETTER TO MY DAD:
Daddy, Yesterday I went through my photos. My little girl inside got to remember fishing with her daddy. I saw you in your business suit and remember going to work with you. Though there was no picture of it, I remember the times you used to pull out your partial denture plate and then laugh that silly loud boisterous laugh that would have us all laughing until tears rolled down our cheeks.
I remembered how you were the one to remember the still and film cameras so that we had a record of our family moments even though they also made me recall more times then I liked the time when I was small and thought a whitened terd on the lawn was one of the Easter eggs we were trying to find. Yes, my sisters had pleasure rubbing that in. There are many lasting legacies you left in my life. The photo albums of my own children, thanks to the camera being passed on to me in grade 4, is one of them.
Another is a lasting desire to make a difference in the lives of others. There are many stories I could tell but one story sticks out in my mind. You had taken me to work with you that day at your job in credit management at some department story and that day, you were assigned the job of repossessing a TV. We drove out to a more run down part of town and on the way you told me that the family was not able to pay for it. I don’t remember what reasons you gave. I do remember that you stopped to buy a bag or two of groceries. The TV was not yours to give them, you told me. But you could at least share food. You taught me that even where there are boundaries in what we can do, there is always a way to show compassion.
I remember the long haired guys who came to stay at our house from somewhere back in the days when they were labeled hippies and seen as undesirables. I remember many hurting people who you and mom let have meals and beds under our roof. I have a greater ease with people from all walks of life because you opened our home in a way that respected us as well.
I take things quite seriously like you too and when I get it in my head that something is important I am not easily able to let it go as something I need to do and say. Sometimes, over the years, I have felt hurt because of this. I forget that I have that same characteristic and that sometimes it takes time to get a new perspective. Yet this characteristic I inherited from you has helped me seek ways to live for justice in my work and in the world around me. Though you may not always agree with my choices, I know that you honour the heart behind what I do.
You took me fishing. Getting to go fishing with you or going on family outings to the kids’ trout pond near Sandy are some of my most vibrant childhood memories. I can feel that little girl pride when the trout I had caught became a part of the supper eaten that night. I remember the thrill and fear in pulling that salmon out of the ocean on trolling boats you hired space on. I remember being a passenger in the motorboat you used near the mouth of the Columbia trying for those sturgeons which seemed to be the most elusive fish. I remember fly casting and streams with you in your hip high boots. Fishing equipment still draws me with its familiarity of shapes, textures and smells.
In the last few years I have had the chance to try fishing again up at a lake in the north part of Manitoba. I sure could have used your guidance with the first three fish that I had on my line but the tenacity you gave me did see me finally nab a fish. My memories were of that trout pond as we trolled a line along in the placid waters the first day I tried. When a fish snagged on my line I was still thinking of those mini-trout until that jack came alongside the boat. It was huge! I jerked in surprise and, unfortunately jerked the line as well setting it free.
The next day I went down to the local rock for diving and fishing. I was determined to get at least one fish. Got my line out to the water and quickly got a fish on a hook. Reeled it in, slowly and carefully until I could see it just below me, reached down with my net with its 6 foot extending handle …. and came up about half a foot short of the water. How was I to get that fish into the net when even laying on the rock with my arms stretched down, I couldn’t reach the water? So I decided to try it another way and slowly tried to lift the fish up to the net. As soon as it left the water, as you may have guessed it would, it gave a quick sharp flick and broke the line. One more lure gone as that fish broke free. So what to do as I was determined to catch a fish? Seems my mind was remembering fishing trips with you.
There was a chink that had fallen off the rock leaving a standing room only ledge about 2 feet down so I climbed down there and bracing my hand on the rocks edge made sure the net could reach the water. It did so I cast my line and waited. It wasn’t long before another fish took my hook and I slowly reeled it in, of course, tangling my line in the process. I ended up setting down my rod and pulling that line in hand over hand but I got the fish up to the rock. I kept the line taught enough but let the jack swim some there in the rocks shadow while with my other hand I grabbed my camera and took some pictures to prove I actually had a fish on my line in case this one got away too.
The dreaded yet anticipated moment came. It was time to try once more to net that fish. I got the net down into the water and almost had the fish in it when the fish gave another flip tangling a fin into the outer side of the net. There was not going to be a chance to get the fish in the net so I pulled up the net with the fish thrashing on the outside of it held by that one fin. I gingerly carried the handle over and flipped the lid off the cooler depositing the fish directly into the cooler since I was intimidated by its sharp little teeth. But I got my fish. Tenacity and stubborn determination paid off. I waited for my friend to gut it though. My desire to fish didn’t quite go that far.
Thinking about it, I have yet to net a fish in this new round of fishing. I have pulled them out onto the ice though. But when I see pictures of small fish that look like smelt, I remember those nights when the smelt ran in the Cowlitz and we would go help line the banks swishing our nets down into the water to catch buckets of the small fish. I can image the bridge on the trout pond and see your hands cleaning and often cooking our catch. I feel the wind of the ocean as we trolled on the rolling waters on the ocean or near the mouth of the Columbia. I hear the gulls along the shore and the muttering of the motor of the small boat we used on those river excursions. I can hear the cadence of your voice as you told stories and listened to mine. Yes, what the little girl in me remembers most about fishing was that it gave me time with daddy. Fishing will always give that remembering to me.
Tomorrow is Father’s Day and I am hoping someone down there will be able to read this to you. I read a quote somewhere that children spell love T-I-M-E. Then you must have loved us. You gave us time.
