At last it's spring -- at least every other day or so it seems to be. A few more months and already my beloved husband will be gone from this earth for one year. Has my life changed⢠Oh my, yes! There are still reminders, visible and invisible, of him everywhere. The children and I still talk about him, especially as the first day of fishing season came and went.
He was very much like a mailman on the first day of that event, because neither snow nor rain could keep him from his favorite stream. Sometimes it was Dunbar Creek, sometimes Laurel Hill or Meadow Run. I think it was any creek where it wasn't too crowded and the fish just might be biting.
It could have been the fun of catching a fish because quite often he would release it and put it back in the icy water to live again. Mostly, it seemed, it was the pure joy of simply being out there in his hip waders, casting a line on the end of which was a "fly" he had tied himself as he sat at a rustic desk with exotic feathers, all sizes of hooks and a variety of boxes containing all sorts of colorful items connected to fly tying.
The closer April 15th came, the more cluttered the laundry room became. There were always the hip waders to be carefully checked for any tiny leaks, a tackle box containing those homemade flies packed and ready to go, a fishing jacket or a vest hanging on a convenient peg and that precious fishing license waiting to be pinned in place.
The children and the grandchildren grew up loving to fish, and yes, that included our daughter. Lewis was coaching the oldest grandson, at age 3, when he caught his very first fish at Cranberry Glade Lake. The picture of that big event still hangs on my wall.
To make it "family fun," as fresh spring breezes turned into hot and humid summer evenings, we would drive up to Donegal Lake where they sometimes caught more nasty bug bites than they did fish. But they had fun!
It's very apparent how my mind works -- I would rather read than fish anyway, so I always took a book with me just in case there wasn't much action on the fishing front. Eventually, as early evening shadows began to fall, mosquitos (who seem to have a fatal attraction for me) began dive bombing me from every direction. That usually made me head for the shelter of the car.
Neither mosquitoes, nor those tiny "no-see-ums" ever made a diehard fisherman decide it was time to go home. I would shout (in a very ladylike way) from the dubious protection of a hot car, "come on guys, it's time to go home!"
From somewhere along the shoreline, already fading into a dark blur, would come from several different voices, "Just one more cast, then we'll go." Promises, promises!
My next call was more often than not, answered by this disheartening line: "All right, we're just going to walk right up here; the fish are jumping."
Now looking fondly back to those long-gone summer evenings, I would gladly be "mosquito-bit" if only time could reverse itself for just one night and we could be as we were then. Carefree, happy, together -- and young.
In my kitchen hangs a photo calendar, right now the month is April 2005, but the picture is from the "old days" and it melts my heart. It's of Lewis all decked out in his fishing clothes, against a background of a pink and gray summer evening sky. He's joking, displaying on the end of his line a very small fish from Donegal Lake. It's one of my favorite pictures of him. It's Lewis enjoying life to the fullest.
