Fishing was always on his mind. He wanted to fish as well as his dad and grandpa. He wanted to fish for trout beside them. His dad began to seriously teach him when he was seven or eight, as his dad had with him. A love they all three shared.
We rented a cabin on the Little Red River in Northern Arkansas. Tom and I, my brother and his wife, and Ryan spent four days there. Ryan got to fish to heart’s content, walking out from the cabin to wade into the river. He practiced his cast, tried different baits, and caught the fish that we cooked for dinner. His goal was to out-fish his dad, he came close.
My parents were supposed to join us, but that didn’t happen. My dad had a health problem that kept them home. One that turned into an event that we all look back on now as a major shift in his life and on his attitude toward it. It was really the point at which he stopped living and started just being. We are still pretty baffled as to why, he healed from the event, but never rebounded his way of living, which left his grandson with a with hole that he longed to have filled. A quest to spend time on a river, fishing pole in hand, beside the man who taught him, and the man who taught him. Three generations of fishermen, learning, living, bonding.
There have been a couple of opportunities to fish with his dad and grandpa since, one just a couple of weeks ago on the same river, staying in the same cabins. It was a good trip, they all caught their limit. We cooked them on the grill that night. It was a fun but difficult time. Difficult to get dad there, difficult to get him to the water, but we made it happen. It is kind of bittersweet for the rest of us, to know what could have been. But fishing is still a bond they share. The boy grew up a fisherman, following in the footsteps of the men before him. He can now out-fish them both. And for a few moments we could all see a life return to our dad and grandpa. A reminder to the rest of us to never let it go.