Little Pieces

This weekend was beautiful.

I was fishing. This is a love I got from my father. I lost it for a while, but when I met my husband, he brought it back into my life.

We use kayaks usually. And there is nothing quite like slicing through the water in near silence, feeling the heat of the morning sun on your back and kingbirds calling from tree to tree. Getting to participate so directly in the cycles of life. . . .the cliche goes, "Give a man a fish, he eats for today. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime."

That, and he feels duly connected to the whole world, which is a nice perk.

My father-in-law, who is ill, loves to fish. He's always loved it. But he gets cold easily now and isn't as strong physically as he was. So we bundled him into his snowsuit and launched the boat for him. My brother-in-law took my husband's kayak and I in mine, my father-in-law, husband and sister-in-law in the boat.

We caught fish; laughed. Joked about silly people on jet skis scaring the fish and each other tangling lines into trees hanging over the water.

Two girls at the boat launch in bikinis make my father-in-law laugh and say we should get a photo of him in the snowsuit and them in bikinis.

His sense of humor isn't sick at all.

Its still sad. There is a bit of pallor on the days. But I hold tight to this day and realize that even though it ends, its the life you have that matters.