The Eye and the Heart

My dad hates fish.

Seriously. He almost kicked me out of the house this past Mother's Day, because hubby and I had the temerity to bring a nice slab of salmon to their house and pan-fry it in lemon pepper. Because Mom requested it, for MOTHER'S DAY. He ordered us not to. Mom had A Chat with him on the subject of what food is consumed by the person whose party the day is for. He gave in with extreme ill grace.

He snarled for three days afterwards, because the smell was still there.

Dad never did like fish to begin with, but when you're the oldest and your dad's overseas fighting a war and your mom's been cut off from her rich in-laws because their darling boy married down, and there's another kid on the way thanks to shore leave, you have to put food on the table somehow. My dad did a lot of fishing to put that food on the table. Of course you will hate it forever, and the reminder of what used to be.

He and Mom made darn sure there was always enough for me to eat, every meal, lots of variety. How was he to know I got my love of fish from Mom, and we would eat it every chance we got? There's another slab of salmon in the freezer as I type this, and we learned how to bake it at our house and hustle it over to share it warm with Mom so he doesn't have to disown me again.

So he hates fish. But he loves the art of fishing.

He lives on a river. Not a day goes by where he doesn't slip off to do a bit of casting. He taught his great-granddaughter how to fish last year, and she loves reeling them in. She doesn't want to touch them, though, or get them off the hook. So Dad does that, we all wave goodbye to the fishie, and we watch Dad gently put them back home in the water.

Dad hates eating fish, but he sure loves teaching them what a hook is all about. Or maybe he just loves living fish better than dead sizzling ones. This is the guy who kept getting bigger and bigger aquariums for my goldfish, even though I kept telling him that they grow to fit the container they're in.

Or maybe he takes savage satisfaction in just letting them go, knowing he isn't being forced to eat them ever again. Guess which theory I subscribe to.

(Mom's "poor foods I will never eat again" are groundhog stew and squirrel pot pie. There's a time in the year when a farmer's out of stored meat and the fresh butcher hasn't happened yet, so Pop would take his gun and get whatever meat was available. Grenny wasn't the best of cooks, and Pop wasn't the best field dresser. Mom recalls pushing the grease to the side, with all the hair that wasn't scraped off. Eeewww. Both of them made certain-sure I never had to experience food scarcity like that.)

I grew up with my own child-sized rod and reel. I got my first tackle box... I think I was three, maybe four? I thought it was a jewelry box, silly me. It's still downstairs, though the rod was given to a cousin. It houses pewter casting materials now, and some jeweler's sand.

I'm okay at fishing, but I actually prefer noodling. And I'm also a dedicated catch-and-release kinda gal. After I pet them a few times.

Dad's legacy to me isn't all about fishing. He also hunted, though usually for pelts to sell for money. In order to be a good hunter, you need to know all about what you're hunting - their habitat, their habits, how they hide and move and feed. What time of day you'll see them. How to spot them. How to distinguish what you can hunt from what you can't. How to be a crack shot with a gun, because if you're going to be a good hunter, make it a clean kill. Yes, you can taste pain in the meat. He showed me how to track, what and where to look, what to listen for, color patterning discernment, how to ID from a long way off.

My mom read me National Geographics in the womb. I was, quite literally, born to be a biologist.

We love having informal "who can spot what critter first" contests. We live at the conjunction of three rivers; there's a lot to see. Bald eagles, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks as big as eagles, minks, deer that use their front lawn as their personal four-lane highway. Wood ducks, mergansers, mallards, Canada geese, and their families. Trout, bass, carp, sunnies, water snakes. Which of my mom's plants the chipmunks gnawed. Watching the little peeps at the feeders.

Recently the game has shifted to "who can spot a tick first." Yeah, it's one of those years. I'm winning with this morning's kill, 2-0.

But Dad also has one of the softest hearts around. Want to know how I know? Because he can't deal with death. I was in college when my dog broke his back, and was in severe pain. One day, he forgot and tried jumping on top of his doghouse like he always did, and fell again. And he gave my dad The Look. That's the look of "Okay, I'm done with living now, let's end this pain." Dad didn't even think, just scooped up my pup and took him to the vet and had it done. Didn't call me, so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I was furious, but I also understood. Mom and Dad have always been more than a bit weird about shielding me from death, when of the three of us, I can deal the best. So I didn't get to say goodbye to any of my grandparents either. But I was there last year for one of my best friends. After surviving two heart attacks and cancer, C's body was giving out. C had the will to live, but her mind was writing checks her body just couldn't cash anymore. My hubby and I were there as much as we could, and C's sister L was there the whole time, sleeping in the room with her. We would come with food L could eat (she's celiac and hospital food isn't known for being allergy friendly), and talk quietly in the dining area, before going up and spending the whole day talking. I graduated as a biologist, and I was even helping to teach the pre-med students while there, so I'm well versed on the approaching signs of death. I let L know what was going on, what the doctors really meant, what signs to look for. And we were there when C died. I was actually sitting aside of her and signaled L, then got out of the way so L and their other sister D could take my place at C's bedside. C waited for us, knowing we would take care of L when she was gone. And we are: I just visited her a few days ago. C and L lived together for many years, since they got along so well.

I always watched Dad take off when death approached, because his heart's too full to deal with the emotions. He knows what he has to do when it's a critter, and he's had to kill rabid animals before, or those that are suffering and need release from the pain. But when it's my turn to take that mantle, he still fights to take it back from me. To save me the pain he can't bear. When the sharp-shinned scared the little peeps at the feeder and a white-throated sparrow slammed himself into the window at my parents' house, I was the one who ran down and picked up the struggling thing and held him in the rain till he died. I couldn't save him, he wasn't in pain, so I chose the third option - be with the dying till they're gone. I cried buckets holding him, but I couldn't let him flop on the ground gasping for breath to peep and warn the others. Dad was mad at the sharp-shin and drove him off, because that's all he could do to help... and we watched that little sneak fly right across the river to my house for his meal. We have feathers (and scat) all over our yard regularly to prove that we're Restaurant Number Two on the Bird-Yelp board. But through all those emotions, Dad made sure to tell me that he saw a crow come and take the white-throat's carcass from the ledge where I laid him, to feed the crow's nestlings.

I get it, Dad. No life should be in vain, not even a little peep's.

I won't get into just how freaked out he gets bringing Monarch caterpillars over to my house to raise them safely in my habitats, because yes, his heart is that tender, and he would not like me to expose that to everyone. He has to maintain his tough-guy manly man license, you know.

He also taught me how to take photos. Dad's been a pretty awesome amateur photographer, though he got rid of most of the bulky equipment when things went digital. He's pretty impressed with the photos I post on FB, but considering he's the one who taught me everything I know about framing, composition, and patience, I really can't take a pic without thinking of him. Or about his patience with the critters he photographed: I remember sitting with him as a cicada emerged from its nymph stage, or a dobsonfly, or a dragonfly, and he'd sit there taking time-lapse photos with a manual film camera to show the transition. I do the same with my butterflies now, being careful and gentle, knowing their lives are so quick to flame out and they have more important matters to attend to than waiting for a few more seconds for me to get the perfect shot. There's feeding and mating and predator avoidance that take precedence over the pink thing with the click-click box.

But Dad always makes excuses to come visit when the habitats are full. He's still amazed, watching them chomp away on all the milkweed I bring in from the gardens and set up for them to devour. You can hear them chewing at sunset, when the birds are beginning to sleep. (The bats hear it too; we've had visitors in the house on more than one occasion, asking if they can help with the terrible infestation they hear we have. We gently shoo them out into the insect-filled night.) He and Mom also come over for release days, to watch then flap into the neighbor's tree before heading south above the riverway.

I'm lucky he's still here, still teaching me. Showing me what creatures he's found. My hubby just pointed out the new chipmunk hole at the pump house, Dad pointed out the eagle gliding overhead while we were walking. And made a new friend when he caught a sucker while fishing, and a great blue heron plopped down to share the treat. And come Sunday we'll go over for lunch, and he'll trounce our tushies again with a few games of Five Crowns. He may not be able to shuffle and deal as fast and crisply like he used to years ago, but our tushies are trounced all the same.

And the fish bubble a sigh of relief in the river outside.