Home Again

Safe trip. Mark at rest. Amazing time with family. Ready to fish and post.

All is well.

Trout Lake Report: Last Trip of August

The lake drapes itself in autumnal beauty for the last trip of August. I won't be back to the lake until September. There's another road trip in the offing. Mark's going with me one more time--his last trip. We're going back to Kansas where he'll be laid to rest.

Trout Lake Report: Remembering Mark

I've been fishing. Life goes on, and for me fishing is a part of life.

It was for Mark, too, until he got too sick to do it. He had diabetes and he was an alcoholic, a deadly combination that finally caught up with him.

He moved out here two years ago after going through toxic shock and being on life support for three days. I hoped we could get things turned around. But a year after coming here he went into shock again. I found him in time to get him to a hospital, but once again he was on life support for three days. Doctors were advising us to make end-of-life decisions when Mark woke up, pulled the breathing tube out, and recovered.

How many times can you go through that? After that we got him set up in a place where someone could keep track of his meds and keep an eye on him to make sure it didn't happen a third time.

That lasted about two months. Mark had a cowboy streak in him, and he decided he didn't want anyone watching over him. He wanted his freedom, come what may, which by then meant freedom to drink. So he got himself kicked out--no drinking allowed there--and moved into an apartment in another town twenty miles away. Where he could be alone.

And that's how he died. Alone. There was finally a systems fail that even he couldn't come back from. But that's how he wanted it. He might say that he lived his life to the end on his own terms, diabetes be damned. And that might be the only thing he finally felt he had any control over.

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I went fishing the Saturday after we got back from our trip. Mark was already dead, but nobody knew it yet. It was a hot evening. On the way in, there was a bull snake crossing the road.

As I geared up at the lake, tiger swallowtails were flitting from bloom to bloom.

The lake was quiet.

I tried everything I could think of, but the fish wouldn't come to the fly.

I finally stopped taking photos and concentrated on the fishing. The last time I hadn't caught a fish at Trout Lake was sometime in 2011, and I wanted to see the streak continue.

But it wasn't to be. Something ended. It was time to start over.

After dark I trolled back to the take out, and then took one more loop hoping for a last minute catch. It didn't come, but something else did. A light came over my right shoulder, a brilliant silver meteor. It drifted down slowly almost to the ridge top and then broke up in orange sparks.

The bright trail of its passing remained in my vision well after the darkness had returned. 

___________________________

I heard of Mark's death on Sunday evening. Monday was spent at the funeral home, at the police station, and at Mark's apartment. Monday evening I went back to the lake.

It was calm and beautiful, and there were fish.

I had lots to think about as the shadows moved up the mountain.

I thought about all the places here Mark and I had been able to fish, including Trout Lake. He was there only once, but I was glad that I could feel his presence through those memories.

At dusk I headed back across to the truck. One more fish came to the muddler as I drifted it behind me.

I beached the float tube and stood up. That's when I heard it. One loon calling, one loon somewhere over there in the darkness of that remote bay beneath that mountain. It called three times, that long, mournful wail that goes right to the heart of you.

Then silence.

I hadn't heard a loon call at Trout Lake for a long time. I've been back since that night, and I haven't heard it since.

Family Post: Life and Loss

My brother Mark.

Born June, 1954. Died July, 2013.

Family Post: Good News, Bad News, Good News, Bad News, and Good News

Life has been busy and hectic with no end in sight. Thought I'd let you know what's going on.

This is my brother Mark. The good news is he came out here to live with us two years ago after a health crisis, got back on his feet again, and moved into his own place.

The bad news is he had another crisis at the beginning of October and almost went over the rainbow. He was on life support for two and a half days.

The good news is that while doctors were telling us to prepare to make end-of-life decisions, he woke up, pulled the breathing tube out, and began to make a recovery. This week he moved into a big house in town where he will have the supervision he needs.

The bad news is that while all this was going on we were tumbling down the rabbit hole of buying a house. After many delays we have about a five day window between when we can get into the new place and when we need to be out of the old place. So we'll be moving somehow over the next weekend. And on Friday the first real cold and snow of the season is supposed to be rolling in.

But the good news is we have many friends and neighbors who are ready and willing to lend their trucks and muscle to get us moved, and it's a very nice house--and it's on the river, a mile or so upstream of the bridge.

As soon as I can get to it I'll let you know how it all goes. Meanwhile, I hope those of you who can will catch a few fish for me.

Clearing the Decks

I didn't make it to the lake today. I moved my brother Mark into his own place instead. We thought that was going to happen last Saturday, but there were a few last minute hitches in communicating with the landlord, who lives in California. Did you know it takes overnight mail two days to get from Washington to California?

But having Mark in a new place makes today a red letter day. Mark had been down on his luck, and then just about a year ago came down with severe diabetes. He went into insulin shock and was in ICU for four days. The doctor said he had essentially died and been brought back to life. Now, there's an Easter story for you.

So I invited him to come out here. For the last 10 months or so he's been living with us. In that time he's gotten the diabetes under control and is finally ready to live on his own.

While Mark was finishing his packing I pulled all the flies off the fly patch on my vest and sorted them back into the right boxes, and switched out the steelhead boxes for the trout boxes in the vest pockets. All I need to do now is pick up the 4 WT and take a few moments to inflate the float tube, and I'll be ready to rock and roll.

Amazingly, I don't have a single thing I need to do tomorrow.