This is a letter to my father who has terminal leukaemia. I use this space to tend to my grief and to immortalise who he is. By writing this I recognise that we will never be able to say everything we wish to say. Death just doesn’t work like that. I hope it brings all those in grief comfort. We are never in this alone.
Dear Dad,
Despite having accompanied you on many a fishing trip, I still do not know how to fish. I watch as you deftly take out worms and squid, varying the combination depending on the day, the fish, your mood. I often can’t bear to watch as you add them to the hook, you laugh, just like I imagine you would have done as a boy, as I turn away and grimace. I often wonder why I accompany you on such trips when I am resolutely vegetarian and the idea that that any animal, even a lug worm, gets hurt is painful to me. But of course I know why I come.
When you and I fish together, it is often at sunrise. I wonder whether my love of sunrise came around because of this, but like most things I imagine it was some kind of convergent evolution of you and I. My love of nature has always come from you. I feel like I was born to be outside with a rucksack full of food and tea, watching as life goes by. The peace that you find in the waves, in the clouds of the setting sun, I find in the trees and the early morning light. You seemed so pleased when I bought you a new rucksack for your fishing, with all the pockets a bag could possibly hold. And on that first day fishing after coming out of hospital, I could tell you were nervous. All fingers and thumbs. I was standing there terrified you’d accidentally cut yourself with the hooks, when your platelets and white blood cells were already low. I was anxious not to take away your independence, and stayed beside you holding the light so you could see in the dark. Just you and I, not even the seagulls were providing us company. As you fumbled I felt your stress rising, that you felt you had lost who you were. You had already lost your hair, your muscle, your shape, but I knew this trip was about more than fishing. It was proving that you were still alive somewhere in the shell the chemotherapy had left behind. I was so glad that day, that they had decided to take your PICC line out, it appeared to be the source of a low grade infection, but in hindsight was a blessing in disguise. It had allowed you to fully cast and be present with the ocean, the ocean that would bring you back to who you were.
I do believe now, that it was the lack of fishing that sent you into a depression. In the second and third cycles, they had decided to keep the line in, which meant for you a fish wasn’t worth it. As I watched that day, with the stars lighting the way above us, the waves moving slowly across the sea, I wanted to give you time. I said I would go further down the shoreline so I could meditate and flow, but really I wanted to observe you from a safe distance. Give you the time away from everything. Just allow you to be with the sea. I had also hoped that by practicing my yoga ritual I would be able to keep my emotions in check, but any practitioners will know, that this was a fools errand. Tapping into my soul that morning, meant that I was more open to receive the beauty the moments following would bring.
I returned to your side as the light began to change, and we could see the sun start to rise on the horizon. We talked about losing one another. The options we had. The reality of life. And as the sun crested the sea we saw a bass jump out of the ocean, high in the sky as if being chased. In all of our years fishing together we had never seen such a sight, and as if by magic, another jump, a wiggle in the air, a dance of joy. Two bass in pursuit, like a brother and sister, playing in the dawn. Life.
I want you to teach me how to fish dad, but equally I don’t want to take away from you time that is clearly so precious. I often wonder if you would have preferred a son, whether on those days you fish you think about the son you lost, and whether he would be there with you learning the ways of the fish better than I. I remember you taking the twins next door fishing with you, feeling a sting of jealousy that I would not be taught. Maybe I was too squeamish when it came to the bait, maybe you had always seen this as an activity passed from father to son.
Did Grandad teach you how to fish? You’ve never said. You have always kept your relationship with him somewhat guarded, and I know that you always felt as if you had let him down in some way, that he was never proud of you. Coming from the esteemed Bing family in the town, Grandad and his brothers were always known to be good at any sport, with two of them playing for premier league teams in the 1950’s. Grandad was the least sporty of the five. Was he passing this concern down to you? That he had somehow let down his own father and hoped to make it up with you? Families are funny that way. But you were a much softer child, needing glasses for your eyesight, a lover of wildlife and practical jokes. Although you played football and ran, cycled miles along the coastline, who you were was different to the lineage from which you came.
The only time I remember you mentioning Grandad in relation to fishing, was when I asked you why we so often dug our own bait. After asking your dad for a few shillings for worms, he’d told you you could dig some from the shoreline, he showed you the left behind tunnels and you dug together for hours just for a pound of worms. From that day onwards he always gave you the shilling. It was the locals and the culture of our town that encouraged you to fish. You went out on the boats as a boy, you couldn’t have been more than eight years old. Out for the day without your parents, and with the fishers on their trawlers from dawn until dusk. Nan often describes how she was leaning out the window that evening waiting for you. Concerned you had been lost at sea. She saw a light shimmer, and there came a tired little boy, trudging up the street, covered head to toe in mackerel scales, gleaming in the moonlight, like stars attached to skin. Grinning from ear to ear, freckled from the sun, a successful day.
This morning you told me the days we will fish when I am home next. We have calculated the lunar phases, the spring tides, the weather. I am convinced that my spirituality and the way that I live with the seasons have helped, even just a little. I have put aside this notion that a son would have done this better than I. You and I have always been close; long bike rides, rock-pooling and days in the garden have brought us ever closer. Our souls both soothed by nature, and the turn of the seasons around us. Catching whiting this Winter has been your warm up act you say. Practice ahead of bass season. You want us to make up for what we have missed in this last year. As you unscrew your flask and pour us out coffees, we sit and reminisce about all the successful summers. I laugh as you recount the 2am fish caught in the darkness, so big that its tail was poking out of your backpack as you cycled through town to the fishmongers to see if he would buy your loot. Joking as you recall a friend you met as you had made a catch, who the next day you saw casting out from the same spot, with no luck. This year we will try fishing from the beach at low tide while still keeping our high tide sea wall spots through spring and summer so we can maximise the time we have to catch.
I hope I can learn some of the tricks from you Dad, because I know when you go, all I will want to do is fish. In the moonlight, in the setting sun, and at dawn, as I know this is where your spirit will reside. I am determined to find you again Dad, and I don’t doubt that it will be here.
With all my love Dad. Always.
Anna xx
Precious memories and now in word can remain forever remembered in detail. Lovely.
So beautiful 💕Observing your dad from a distance then sharing a conversation as the sun began to rise, a wonderful connection between you both.