Randy Kadish's Blog - Posts Tagged "bereavement"

Downriver, the Hudson flowed into the New York harbor. To me, it suddenly seemed amazing that a shallow, tree-lined stream in upstate New York could turn into a wide, deep, building-lined river. I wondered, Was the Hudson, therefore, a reflection of the flow of humanity? After all, our knowledge supposedly deepened as generations flowed on. But the Hudson eventually flowed into the ocean and lost its shape and identity. Perhaps if it knew where it was flowing to it would stop and wait, forever. But, like me, there are things a river can’t cure, though in a few hours, when the tide changes, the river will turn around and go back, at least for a few hours. Is that a metaphor for the river flowing back into its character defects, the way I have? In many ways I’m like the river. I’m also flowing toward losing my identity, toward the final unknown. But before I reach it, will I somehow pull a Houdini and escape the dead-end in front of me? If only I could turn around and become a doctor, a lawyer, a forgiving son instead of an angry one. But like the banks of the Hudson, my past is shaped in stone. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... Now it was my turn to feel shot full of Novocain. I remembered the power of a good story, especially told by someone who had never written one. I remembered how my father, in his way, had also deserted me and how, even after his death, a part of me wanted him back, partly because I knew if he read my memoirs he would be proud, very proud.

I didn’t have to wonder why Thomas told me his story. He wanted me to write it and, in a sense, keep him alive in the small world of fishing. But did I, a little-known writer with a long line of mistakes in life, have power over who lived and died? If so, did I want it?

The wind, I noticed, had retreated. The leaves were still, and the Meer looked like a life-size frame on a movie screen. Then I realized it was a three-dimensional frame, seemingly a moment frozen in time. Did the Meer somehow create the frame to acknowledge Thomas and to give him a little more precious time? If so, I wished the much larger world could do the same, for him and for other cancer patients as well.

Though the water had become darker, the colors of its vibrating reflections—trees and tall buildings—had brightened, ironically. I thought, again I wish that, as the sun sets on our lives, we became beautiful, like autumn leaves. Are men and women less deserving than leaves because of our mistakes, especially our long, long string of wars? But now, as I look back, I see my cancer-stricken mother having been more beautiful just before she died.

A flock of geese dived and shattered the calm surface of the Meer. The geese and seagulls soon formed two distinct camps on the water. The camps reminded me of opposing armies on the night before they clashed. But the geese swam away. The seagulls didn’t pursue. Yes, geese and seagulls are more like anglers sharing the same lake or river than like opposing armies fighting, killing for the same land.

“Randy, I have to go. Good luck with your test.”

“Thanks, Thomas, thanks.”

I watched him drive out of the park. Will I see him again? I wondered. If I don’t, I’ll miss him. How I wish I could see my parents again. But at least I can still see my sister. Thank God she never overdosed. I wonder what’s going through Thomas’s mind, knowing he might not ever again see the Meer? What will his final journey—to where time cannot go—be like? And what will my final journey be like? Is it better if I don’t know? ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... Below me a fly line shot out and unrolled. The leader swung left, as if the caster had moved his elbow too much. The fly landed gently, upstream of the line and just outside a swirling eddy. The fly drifted about two feet, then was retrieved. The angler below me wore a black suit, hip boots and a gray cap. He cast again, pointing the rod out at an angle of about 45 degrees to the water. The leader swung again, and the fly landed just outside the eddy.

I walked off the bridge and down the road. Following Clay’s directions, I turned onto a narrow road and into a rocky clearing. The clearing, I quickly saw, was the north bank of the Beaverkill. Across the river, the far bank was about six feet high and tiled with big, flat rocks. Above the bank was a big corn field.

The angler under the bridge wrote something in a small notebook. He looked familiar. Could he be—yes he was, George M. L. La Branche!

I walked to him. “Mr. La Branche?”

He glanced at me. “Yes?” he said coldly.

“I saw you cast in a tournament.”

“I cast in a lot of tournaments.” He stuffed his notebook and pencil into his pocket.

“The one in Central Park that Izzy Klein won. Do you know what happened to Izzy?”

“Happened? I never saw or heard anything about him again. I’m very busy right now.”

Busy? He was fishing. I was stupid for starting a conversation with a man with two middle initials.

I walked downstream. The river widened into the shape of a huge funnel. The funnel, I knew, was the Forks. The stem was the Willowemoc Creek. Like the upper Beaverkill, it was riffled from bank to bank and reminded me of a marching army.

Why, I wondered, did images of armies, instead of beauty, pop into my mind? Was it because I felt I was in foreign, hostile territory and about to do battle with the Beaverkill?

If so, at least I was glad the Willowemoc and Beaverkill armies didn’t collide. Both slowed, surrendered and merged into a large plain of what seemed like neutral territory. The plain, however, was wrinkled by swirling eddies that soon changed directions, as if they were lost and couldn’t find their way.

What formed the eddies?

The biggest eddy disappeared, suddenly, then popped up a few feet downstream.
Did eddies, like stars, form out of nowhere and then disappear?

Way downstream of the big eddy was a big, round island, covered with tall, uneven grass. The island looked as if it needed a haircut; then I remembered the tree trunks that blemished so many mountains.

I thought, Maybe nature was better off not having Man as a barber.

I walked to the pool’s tail. Two currents flowed in opposite directions, like the lines of immigrants strolling up and down Orchard Street. Near the end of the tail, the upstream current about-faced and merged into the downstream current, and the whole river seemed to smooth into a football-field-long pane of sliding glass. At the end of the field, in the end zone, the river sloped sharply, sped up and reformed into a riffled, roaring army, more powerful than either of the armies flowing into the Forks.

Why was it, I wondered, the Beaverkill presented so many different faces of water? Was the Beaverkill like an exposed army donning different camouflages?

But the river had no real reason to feel exposed. A mountain protected it like a fortress wall and enabled the river to quickly surround the island; but instead of storming and sacking it, the river widened and gave way to it, then marched out of my view, without saying good-bye.

How could it? Did the Beaverkill, the sky or the mountains care about me? Wasn’t I like an unloved insect trapped in the vastness of the world? Or was I just trapped in one small world? If so, how many different worlds were there on earth? As many as stars in the sky? Could people go from world to world and not get lost or trapped? After all, less than thirty yards away was my eventual way out of the world of the Beaverkill: the railroad tracks. But for better or worse, for the next two days I had no other world to go to.

I set up my Leonard and tied on a Green Drake wet fly. I decided, however, to go after Clay’s monster trout later on. I walked back upstream, pulled line off the reel, and cast over the neutral plain. The eddies grabbed the line like a thief and wouldn’t let go. I pointed the rod up and tried to mend. The eddies pulled more strongly. I pointed the rod lower and fed line through the guides. The fly sank.

No take. I retrieved and cast a few feet downstream. The eddies left the line for dead, surprisingly. To give life to my fly, I slowly pointed the rod up and down, up and down.

Again no take. Again I cast, landing the line between two eddies. The smooth water grabbed the line.

An hour later I still hadn’t induced a take. Discouraged, I walked to the pool’s tail. The sliding water glowed brighter than a sun-reflecting marble floor.

Was the Beaverkill, or at least what I saw of it, more beautiful than Penn Station?

Not sure, I waded into the tail. The rocks on the bottom were flat, as if the moving water had shaped them so people could walk on them. The water rushed gently around my legs. Instead of trying to push me back or to knock me over, it seemed to caress and welcome me.

A cloud blocked the sun. The water’s glow faded and, like a chameleon, turned into the upside-down reflections of trees and the mountain. I thought it strange that less light brought out more images. The reflected trees and mountain looked as if they were sinking into the earth. Suddenly I didn’t know if I was in the bottom of a wide valley or at the top.

Or was I in both places at once?

I wished every time something bad happened, I could look at a reflection and the world would be upside-down. And then if I could also change the river’s direction maybe I could bring my mother and all the dead soldiers back to life.
But unlike flowing water, the reflections seemed cemented in place. ...

The Fly Caster Who Tried to Make Peace with the World