A rented, cold metal hospital bed menacingly crowds the living room of the 1970’s suburban, one-story home. Dated, dark furniture and oversized table lamps, purchased thirty years ago and still wearing showroom plastic lampshade covers, have been haphazardly shoved against one wall to temporarily make room for the patient. Obtrusive medical pumps make their presence known through an eerie cadence of clicks and beeps. Tubes, hopelessly delivering life-sustaining oxygen and pain-numbing morphine, snake and entangle his frail, failing body, making him appear more machine than human. He has been unconscious and silent for three days, dying, as cancer ravages his lungs. Just moments before taking the long, rasping breath that would be his last, he startles into semi-consciousness and mumbles,
“Take me fishing Dave,” I could barely hear him but I knew precisely what my dad was asking of me. Little did I know that his last wish would tear the family apart.
###
I was well into my fifties when he was diagnosed. Prior to his cancer the two of us would spend a week each summer fishing for salmon in the distant reaches of northern British Columbia. Our destination was a remote fishing lodge on Langara Island. I had stumbled across this particular lodge while working for an Oregon-based fish conservation group’s booth at a Sportsmen’s show. I showed dad the glossy brochure depicting luxurious furnishings, five-star dining, and a claim to the best salmon fishing in the world. This was a place that Zane Grey would fish. We were hooked. For fifteen consecutive years we journeyed to that lodge to fish the same unspoiled stretch of saltwater. No cancellations, no excuses. Waking at 4AM each morning we fished hard from dawn until dusk. Long hours on the water were rewarded with generous numbers of large chrome and copper-colored salmon that would be cleaned, filleted, flash frozen and shipped home in large, brown cardboard waxed boxes bearing the colorful eagle-shaped logo of the fishing lodge. Three days into these trips our fingers bore the deep, painful wounds of cutting bait and hand-lining fish. Hands cramped and ached from the repetitive motions of tying knots and fighting fish. I had quit jobs that were easier than this.
Our time on the water was spent laughing, sharing successes, and reluctantly admitting our failures.
“What do you say Dad? Dollar for the first, the most, and the biggest fish?” Such wagers were made daily. We kept a running total of the bets, but no real money ever changed hands. Our currency was time together. Time invested in one another. Time to attempt to atone for the absences of a complicated past. Away from the prying ears and eyes of family we were free to talk about most anything. Work, money and too often my poor choice in women.
“I wish you wouldn’t drink so much,” he would chastise me.
“I would like for you to quit smoking,” I would reply. What we never really talked about was why he abandoned my mom and me when I was five years old or what prompted her to take her life years later. Only once or twice over the years had I been able to twist up the courage to ask him what happened the day she died. He would just look away, staring expressionlessly in a different direction. I would watch as his face would morph, overcome with emotion. Was it grief or anger he was feeling? Was he angry at her for killing herself or angry with me for asking? It often took a day or more for him to fully recover. I guess it just became easier for me and less emotional for the both of us if I stopped asking.
###
Dad’s best friend called me a few days after he died. Jack owned the funeral home in my hometown and had been my baseball coach throughout my youth, working tirelessly to teach me how to be a catcher.
“Son, I’m sorry about your dad’s passing. I know you two had issues, but he really was a great man,” Jack said. I could tell he had more on his mind. “After your mother passed away years ago he really changed.”
“Thanks coach. Mom didn’t just pass away. She ended her life.”
“Well, let’s not get into all of that right now. I called to tell you that your dad insisted that I give you his ashes. So you’ll need to come by.” That afternoon I stopped at the funeral home to retrieve the cremated remains of the man I had tried so desperately to love for fifty plus years. Jack also provided me with an executed amendment to dad’s Last Will and Testament, giving me the sole legal right to his remains. Driving back to his house I wondered why dad had been so adamant that I was to receive his ashes and why he took the legal steps to do so.
####
A few years after my mom died dad began dating an old college sweetheart. They soon married and within days she and her two daughters moved into dad’s house. I was living on the Oregon coast at the time, struggling in a dysfunctional and purely transactional relationship with an aerobics instructor while still hoping to forge a new relationship with my dad. After dad and his bride had been married for a few months I invited the two of them to dinner at a local seafood restaurant. Over cocktails and appetizers dad’s wife kept insisting that I call her “mom”. Finally, I irritably responded,
“You’re not my mom so please stop asking me.”
####
My relationship with dad’s new wife and her two daughters became increasingly challenging over the years, fraught with jealousy and competition for his attention. My stepsisters, who lacked the interest in fishing and the means to afford these fishing trips, had never complained about being excluded, until now. Shortly after picking up dad’s ashes, dad’s wife scheduled an emergency family meeting.
“Dave, we’d like to have your dad’s ashes spread here in Oregon,” his wife said. “You and he used to enjoy fishing the Nestucca River. Perhaps that would be best. That way everyone can be there.”
“But dad was clear about wanting his ashes spread in northern British Columbia.”
“Be reasonable Dave. That’s just too expensive for most of the family. No, you are going to spread his ashes here locally.” The less than amiable family meeting ended without our agreeing on where to lay dad to rest. He must have known that this final wish of his was going to cause trouble. Was he testing me from the afterlife? Or perhaps he was just too tired or too sick to fight with his wife over it. Driving home that evening I envisioned the conversation that I needed to have with him if only I was able.
“I’m getting a lot of pressure to deposit your ashes in the Nestucca River, dad.”
“I’ll bet you haven’t even pushed back, have you? I thought I was perfectly clear what I wanted,” he replied sounding frustrated that we were even having the conversation.
“Push back? Well, not really. She seems wedded to keeping you in Oregon. I’m just trying to keep the family in mind, dad.”
“Look. You’re a grown man, son. Do what’s in your heart.”
The next Saturday morning, standing before a crowded congregation in his church, I delivered my dad’s eulogy. It was a sweltering hot spring afternoon and standing at the podium where his energetic minister regularly delivered blistering and emotional sermons, I was regretting wearing a wool suit. Looking out at the many faces of people whose lives he had touched forced me to see dad in a different light. Was this the same man that left his wife and 5-year-old son fifty years ago? Was this the man who, until I was in my thirties, was too busy to spend time with me? The words I spoke in that church, before those people, impacted me in ways that I had not anticipated. But I knew I was lying when I said,
“I can’t remember a single time growing up when my dad thwarted me.” But he had thwarted me. His absence from my childhood was proof. But I knew if I spoke that truth my words would destroy the respected, kind-hearted public image he spent years curating. I didn’t know if I was simply being a dutiful son protecting his father’s image or edging closer to making peace with the man, and finding a way to forgive him? What I did know was that in some twisted biological way I owed it to him to see that this final wish was honored.
After the funeral, family and close friends gathered at his house. Platters of greasy comfort food, delivered by curious neighbors, was paired with well-intentioned, yet hollow, condolences. In an unseemly move, dad’s wife and her daughters publicly leveraged the occasion to restate their previous demand that his ashes be spread close to home, not off some backwater island in British Columbia.
“Dave, we are so pleased that you have agreed to spread your dad’s ashes here, close to home.”
“But wait. I never agreed to that. I refuse to deprive him of his dying wish.”
“Look son, don’t make me get your dad’s lawyers involved with this. You just need to do what we ask, that’s all,” his wife curtly replied.
“I’m not your son. Don’t you think it is ironic that you don’t have enough money to travel to British Columbia but do have enough to hire a lawyer to fight me on this.”
Walking out of his house that night I knew there would be no going back. Dad’s absence from my life had taught me that actions speak louder than words. Without speaking a word I said goodbye to that part of my family forever.
Travelling north to the remote island of Langara is a lengthy journey. The small island is about 150 miles west of Ketchikan, Alaska, reachable only by float plane or helicopter. The two of us had always made the trip together. No coming late or leaving early. This trip would be no different. He rested peacefully on my lap throughout each leg of the long trip. After driving north 90 minutes to Vancouver, BC., we boarded a small DeHavilland Twin Otter turbo prop for the two-hour flight to the small town of Masset, located on Graham’s Island of Haida Gwaii. The final leg of the trip was a one-hour helicopter flight to the remote, rustic lodge perched on a bluff high above on a weather-protected cove on Langara Island.
Walking into the rustic lodge the smell of leather furniture and a wood fire felt warm and familiar, yet different without him. Repeated visits here afforded me a closeness with the lodge staff who now felt like extended family. Terry, the lodge manager personally greeted me.
“Welcome back, Dave. If there is anything you need please just let me know.”
Most of the staff knew in advance why I was here. For those that may not have known, the sealed box in my hands made it easy to guess. What they didn’t know was that this would be my last visit.
Before leaving home I had selected a spot off the east side of the island to spread his ashes. This had been dad’s favorite salmon fishing spot. Here much of the island’s jet-black volcanic rock is capped with a light layer of gray marine carbonate, creating an almost frost-like appearance. Crab-like, black rock fingers claw down from the shore reaching deep into the blue saltwater. This underwater outcropping then gives way to deeper saltwater that attracts herring, the bait fish that large salmon prefer. Looking back inland from the craggy shore, the tundra-like soil is spongy and moist. Giant fir trees somehow scratch out a toehold in the narrow area of thin earth between the boggy soil and rocky shoreline. Eagles, so plentiful that their white heads resemble tree ornaments on Christmas morning, loiter among the thick stands of massive Douglas Firs and Sitka Spruce. Natives of the Haida Nation have inhabited this area for tens of thousands of years. Their intricately carved totems, abandoned villages, and cliff-side burial sites reserved for only the most revered tribal royalty and elders dot the island’s coastline, creating a deep spiritual sensation that this is a sacred place. My plan was to lay dad to rest and then take the boat for the hour-long trip around to the opposite side of the island to spend one last afternoon fishing this magical place.
I maneuvered the lodge’s 19-foot Boston Whaler to within about 200 yards of the island’s eastern shore’s rocky outcropping known as Andrews Point. As I stared at the sealed cardboard box on my lap I was hopeful that this trip would release me from years of conflicted emotions I felt towards this man. Was it anger, hurt, or resentment that I had harbored most of my life? I struggled to forgive him, but I struggled more to let go. Opening the box, I undid the metal tag that sealed the plastic bag inside, and slowly released dad’s ashes into the cold, blue, north Pacific saltwater. I watched the sediment and fine dust, all that remained of his 86 years on earth, swirl and then slowly disappear beneath the ocean’s surface. An unexpected sense of loss and grief came over me. In that instant I realized that I was now an orphan, having lost both of my parents. After several minutes I started the boat’s motor, about to travel to the other side of the island when, for no reason I could have articulated, I hesitated.
Turning off the motor I reached for my fishing rod, threaded a limp, dead herring onto the hook, and slowly lowered the weighted line down into the water to a depth of about 100 feet. After a few minutes I asked myself what the hell was I doing? Fishing where I had just spread his ashes felt crude and insensitive. I stood up, pulled the fishing rod out of the rod holder and was just about to retrieve my line when suddenly something very heavy grabbed my bait, nearly yanking the rod out of my hands. The weight of the heavy fish flexed the graphite fishing rod into a “U” shape, burying the tip of the rod just beneath the water’s surface. Whatever was on the other end of the line exploded in an invisible fit of rage, deep below the surface. I knew from experience that this had to be a Chinook salmon, the largest species of salmon in the ocean. The Chinook has a distinctive pattern of fighting hard when hooked. They run, fast and heavy, straight to the bottom of the ocean, giving off very distinctive and violent head shakes as they do so. Suddenly the fish will stop, reverse course and race back towards the boat faster than an angler can recover the slack line. Without constant tension on the fishing line the fish will easily throw the hook, thereby regaining its well-earned freedom. This is where all but the most experienced anglers inevitably lose the wily old Chinook.
It took forty minutes to wear this big fish down and gently coax it to the surface next to the boat. Quietly resting on its side in the water was the largest salmon I had ever caught. This fish had to weigh at least 60 pounds. Its coal black eyes seemed to be fixated on me. The two of us seemed to be locked into a stare. Fifteen years of memories of being here with my dad flooded my consciousness. Precious days of having him to myself. Images of the two of us fishing sprinted across my consciousness like a rapid-fire slide show. What I could see was, that in his later years, he had worked hard trying to make up for his parenting failures and absences from my life.
As the weakened Chinook and I remained fixated on one another I knew there was one last thing I needed to do. I reached down, and with a set of needle nose pliers, gently removed the barbless hooks from the mouth of this giant. Now free, the salmon continued to lay there in the water next to the boat, still glaring at me, as if asking “Are you sure?” Finally the big Chinook righted itself and slowly began to swim away, remaining close to the surface and allowing me to observe him for a few more precious seconds. In that moment I knew I had been released from 50 years of anger and disappointment. I had finally forgiven him.
Then, with one mighty slap of his giant tail, he was gone.