Memory Fishing

Ann attended a writing class (on how to teach writing) and had to actually write an essay. I helped a smidge, but asked her if I could post her piece on my blog. She agreed so here it is:

Every summer our family of five went on vacation camping in Northern Wisconsin. The trips always involved fishing with my dad. Just the two of us in a simple aluminum motorboat; me, sitting high at the bow with my puffy life vest on and Dad grinning at the back while steering the small outboard motor holding a cigarette in one hand and with his other hand. holding onto the side of the boat as he tried to bounce me over the waves.

We’d fish for hours without a word exchanged between us, the silence only broken with by childish scream every time I’d catch the abundant perch or on special occasions, a good size Northern Pike. At those times, I’d look over to my dad to confirm the fish’s identity and he’d let me know if it was big enough to keep. His eyebrows raised and I’d see his face light up. “That’s a pretty good one,” he’d grunt and we’d go back to our silence. I loved sharing these times with my dad, but I hated each cigarette’s red hot end and the smoke that always hung in the air between us as we fished on quiet, calm lakes.

Forty years later my older brother, Phil, cut the engine of my dad’s car as we arrived at my Dad’s house. The surrounding cornfields hadn’t been plowed under yet to make way for the new spring plantings. The stalks lay broken and bent. I was thankful to step out of the stale smell of the car’s interior to the fresh country air. I stretched after my long hours sitting on a plane and took in the full view of the farm land around me.

“We’ve been cleaning the house the past week while Dad’s been in the hospital,” Phil stated matter-of-factly. “It was really disgusting. I think he hasn’t been cleaning the house for the past few months. You better prepare yourself.”

I hesitated, positioning myself so I was the last to enter. We walked up to the front door, but the screen door resisted and stuck so Phil had to use both hands to pry it open. It remained open and that’s when the decades old cigarette smell burned my nostrils. I thought, “God, I’m so glad I didn’t arrange to stay here at the house.” As usual, seeing my dad was always a secondary experience to the assault on my senses. I blinked rapidly as my eyes watered from the intense concentration of stale smoke.

Then I saw my dad sitting in his new recliner that we, his three kids, had bought him the previous Christmas. The recliner was massive; a blue raft. He looked as if he were floating down a river minus a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Instead, I saw the whitecaps of used tissues surrounding him, and ahead, instead of the bend in the river there was a brand new wide-screen HDTV tuned to a golf tournament.

He looked so small.

When he saw me, my father raised his head to give a nod and a grunt, and then he rubbed his head as if he were sick. My father was never sick. Until now. I moved to give him a hug and a kiss and felt him having trouble keeping up with my swift greeting, his lips still puckered after I had withdrawn to sit down. He quickly spat into a tissue and soon I saw that he did this with the same timing as when he puffed on a cigarette. The white plastic garbage bag was full and had become his new ashtray.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Not so good,” he grunted and shook his head and again rubbed it.

Phil began talking and soon his voice filled in both sides of the conversation. I got thirsty and excused myself to go to the kitchen. Phil came up behind me and explained how he and his wife had removed all the food and drinks from the fridge and cleaned out the cupboards now that Dad couldn’t eat or drink. He pointed to case after case of Dad’s liquid food for his G-tube, a tube inserted into the stomach into which Dad poured the cans a few times a day. The stacked cases reminded me of the dog food from my own home.

Esophageal cancer was the diagnosis; a six centimeter cancerous tumor had blocked his esophagus and was migrating rapidly throughout his body. Phil explained how the doctors were talking about chemotherapy so dad could at least swallow, but the outlook was grim.

At the sink all the old ashtrays I’d grown up with were stacked and clean for the first time ever. I also noticed the old instant coffee pot on the bare counter unplugged and stained from old spills. My dad loved his coffee and we used to laugh at the sound of the spoon rhythmically hitting the sides of the mug long after the sugar had dissolved.

Suddenly, I thought, “If he can’t eat or drink, how can he breathe?” I practiced with my own mouth and nose, breathing-swallowing-inhaling-exhaling-swallowing, it became confusing since it was all so automatic for me.

I immediately thought He could actually smoke if he wanted to. I asked him and he said he had no desire to smoke since his throat was so dry. I looked at his pale, drawn face and gave him an ironic smile. Finally, my wish had come true. My dad had quit smoking.

When I returned home to Seattle a few days later, I received the dreaded phone call in the middle of the night. The next morning I was back on a plane, driving through the cornfields and turning into the driveway, once again at my father’s house. My brother and sister-in-law had done most of the cleaning, attempting to elbow grease the yellow stains from the walls and fabric of a 70 year old man’s bad habits. Still, there was sorting to do, combing through and divvying up our father’s belongings.

There wasn’t much I wanted, but in the basement, hanging in the rafters I spotted my special fishing pole. The memories of the aluminum boat washed over me; my dad’s grin, his hand on the steering wheel, and the flopping Northern Pike in the belly of the boat. I easily could have taken the pole. It was mine and my father had kept it all these years perhaps with the knowledge that I’d return for it after his passing. But in the end, I left it for my brother’s grandkids knowing one day, he’d take them on a quiet lake somewhere and gently rock his way into their memory as my father had done with me.