Lawnchair fishing (253/365/2023)

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I attended a Celebration of Life for a colleague today. He passed away a few weeks ago, a few days after I’d returned from the first motorcycle trip. I feel honoured to have had an opportunity to spend a short period of time with him a couple of days before I went on that ride and I’d thought a lot about him and his life while on it.

Pancreatic cancer took him in the blink of an eye. I guess there is some grace in that. It wasn’t long or drawn out, and when I’d seen him he seemed at peace with things. He’d said to me “There is a pattern to life…you go to school, you get a job, you get married, you have kids, people pass away….but I never thought it was me.”

We never think it will be us.

His Celebration was just that, a celebration of Murray’s life, his family, his friendships, his work, his humour, him. It was a lovely warm day in his backyard with his friends, his family, his colleagues, his neighbours. I learned new things about Murray, and I met his family for the first time.

When I met his wife she gave me a hug and said he’d spoken of me. A little later she came around and handed me a paper bag with my name on it. You don’t usually expect a gift under circumstances like these.

I opened the bag and started to pull out what was inside. I got about an inch out of the bag and I knew what it was and tears shot up into my eyes.

It was a photo, framed….a photo I’d taken and shared with her and others on a Facebook post on hearing of Murray’s death, with my memories of fishing on a creek up in the upper Squamish, the Shovelnose.

I’d done the Cheakamus once…rafting and seining for Chinook in glacial waters that you can’t see an inch into. Snagged nets, waters that can (and do) kill, running down bouldered waters edge to pick up the end of a drifting net…..work for younger knees than mine.

I said I wanted to help, but maybe that was for a different age bracket than I was in.

And so I was invited to help on the Shovelnose, with Murray.

Get up obscenely early, drive to Squamish and head out in a truck before the rest of the staff had started to think about getting out of bed.

Yes, I could do this.

Set up a net across a narrow creek and then sit in lawn chairs at the edge of the creek all day and watch for anything to swim into the net. If something did….jump up and go get it before it got out of the net. Put it into a tube, tie the tube in the river and, at the end of the day, put said tubes into the transport tank and drive them back to the hatchery.

Yes, this was more my speed.

I was definitely a person for “Team Lawnchair”.

I helped Murray a few times each year for several years, until he retired in 2020.

I took this photo of Murray in his lawn chair, doing a crossword puzzle (in the bottom right corner) in 2019. Murray’s wife printed it, framed it, wrote on the back of it (Lazy Days on the Shovelnose 2019 ❤️), wrapped it in tissue, and gave it back to me.

That was very unexpected, and also very meaningful.

The intended photo today was supposed to be this backlit image of a couple of the remaining blooms on the orchid that was a gift from my BFF back in April on the death of my little Gizmo….just a couple of flowers are remaining. Both seem to tie in together.

Oh, and these two below? Just a couple of shots from he Pitt on Thursday that I didn’t realize were still on the camera.