fly fishing, grief, living forward, memories, moving forward, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Remembering, saudade
Well, that was a tangled mess. Somehow I’d managed to get my fishing line wrapped around itself in a knot that reminded me of the tangles I used to get in my hair as a child. I sat down on the bank with our fly fishing guide as he cut line and retied flies. Watching him use the clamp and clippers dangling from his vest, I had a flash of memory of watching Ken in similar motion. “You have two kids?” I asked, suddenly thinking about fathers. “Two boys, 19 months and 5 weeks.” The second son had been injured during childbirth. Nothing too serious but painful for the little guy. We talked about nursing; it’s the only thing that soothes him. His wife has struggled more with the demands after this birth. I told him about my own nursing experience as a new mom and the time the young man fishing downstream seemed to have turned me into his own personal pacifier. How hard it was and how important at the same time. “Sometimes you feel like you just need five minutes of the old you,” I said. “I can understand that,” he replied. His wife had agreed that he needed some time to go fishing when she was safely harbored in the hospital. He took an hour and caught 30 fish in that same spot. He was fully himself in that moment. My son created his own tangle so the guide left me holding my partially repaired line and went to help him. Our conversation had given me a glimpse back to that early life when the...
ALAL on Facebook
ALAL on Pinterest
Tamara on LinkedIn
Follow on Twitter