November 'til May, Fish to Fish

My brother Phil died in November one week and one day before he would have turned 72. In December our family gathered in Georgia with friends for a funeral service. In May we knew there would be  another gathering on more familiar ground.

Our family made plans to join with family and friends for a final goodbye in Ocean City, Md., familiar territory to all of us and a place frequented often by my brother the fisherman. The gathering happened in a large house overlooking Synepuxent Bay.

Soon after arriving for the event friends joined family and the large living room filled quickly. Some of the people I recognized immediately. Others took me awhile as I tried to add  more hair and  darker color to their aging locks. In spite of increased wrinkles the shape of noses, brightness of eyes, or the angle of the chin were often a giveaway. The easiest people were the ones I had never met. After studying one woman's face she told me she had been in Phil's graduating class. I responded with" Oh good we aren't supposed to know each other."

We enjoyed a late lunch while friends and family visited. Soon it was time for my reading of the piece I wrote about Steve's phone call to Phil telling him how much he was appreciated. After a few more comments and then a song sung by his best friend Tim, it was time for the dropping of ashes. My brother Ted used rice paper in the shape of flounder for members of the family to drop in the bay. Each flounder was 10 inches and too small to be keepers if they were real fish. We watched as each fish was dropped. Some floated for a while and then sunk. Others sunk right away.

All too soon it was time to go. My son Chris stayed behind as he went fishing with a cousin. It was easy to imagine Phil being a part of this occasion. He mingled well with people and to go fishing with Chris who had learned the sport from him would have been the perfect ending to a very full day. Chris caught 30 blues. His delight was as great as his uncle's had been in September when I saw him last. after  he had caught 3 flounder all the right size. What pleasure they both took in what God had created.

"When I look at your heavens,the work of your fingers. the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of  him or the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor."   from Psalm 8


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