Update 10 - MUD Fishing

On the way to fish this morning I answered an unknown number. I knew it was the doctor. I had Phillip, Johnny, and Fielder with me so I turned the speaker phone in my truck off and got the first bit of good news I’ve got in a while. No change over night. River is stable.

I’ve learned to turn off the speakerphone if you have any doubt about the caller. One of many lessons I’ve learned from Bart. Ever had a moment where you stuck your foot in your mouth on speakerphone? I have. I’m known to answer Carly’s calls with, “what are you wearing?” Then I feel Carly blushing through the phone and learn that her coworkers are in the car. I don’t get embarrassed. She does. I'm also known to crack a 13 year old joke only to find out a customer’s wife or daughter is in the car. I’ll apologize, but the damage is done. I’ve learned to ask, “are you alone?” It diminishes the power of the Joke because they know it’s coming. In this new age of technology far removed from bag phones or Zack Morris phones, please in the name of speakerphone etiquette and my 13 year old jokes, let a brother know that he is on speakerphone. This way your wife, daughter, or pastor doesn’t judge me before they have a chance to get to know my dumb sense of humor.

Fielder hasn’t learned to have a filter yet. We learned a lot yesterday to help me be there for Fielder right now.  Leigh Ellen told me that memories are tied to language. Fielder is like me. He has words. He has all the feels. He is a talker. Sometimes he is blunt. One time at Kroger with his nanny he told a lady she had a mean face. He was barely three. His nanny was so embarrassed. In his defense we were learning about our emotions and the faces they create the prior week. He obviously absorbed the lesson. It didn’t feel like he did. He was wallering all over the floor and licking things instead of listening. I lost my cool with him and he looked up and responded, “Why you got that face daddy!”

Today is a day to teach Fielder how to cope with emotions. To teach him it’s okay to take time for yourself in a time of crisis. If someone judges you then they aren’t your friend or can’t comprehend the situation. I fish when I’m stressed. On 9/11 Lynn Bailey and Sheryl Mcgaha checked me out of school and I went fishing. I had manipulated the system and got them signed up as guardians. I normally used this system so I didn’t have to do the deuce at school. No men’s stalls had doors. Ever. But I also used the system to skip school. I bet the appeals board that had approved my excessive absences, always more than 5 per semester, may want to reconsider letting me graduate. Too late. 

I also fish for fun. Last night I thought about my ole buddy MT when I wrote about lunkers and saddaddies. Memories are funny things. I have a vivid memory of fishing with MT behind his folks house. It may not be right, but I’m pretty sure that’s when he taught me the word saddaddies. We fished together a lot. I’m excited to fish with him this fall.

We should have taken a D.R. Chipper to the fishing whole that day. We knew the pond was there but had never fished it before. My cargo shorts became a makeshift tackle box. And we walked. Remember cargo shorts? I wanted to be prepared for anything, I was not prepared for it to be so overgrown. We caught many bass, but they were mostly tiny. So tiny in fact that my quick overhead hook sets often pulled the fish almost all the way to the bank and my line would get caught in the surrounding overhead trees. The fish were small, but the memory is Big. 

The tiny little bass couldn’t resist a pumpkin’ seed lizzard. Seth Gamblin told me 2 Sunday’s ago, that the color pattern when first produced was a mistake, but went on to become their best selling color of all time. He wasn’t 100 percent sure it was a true story, but I hope so. It is my favorite color pattern. 

People plan. We have grand ideas, but we really don’t know anything. We are all just trying our best. Failure is inevitable if we are trying to live an abundant life. Mistakes, moments of failure, and despair can be the beginnings of something great. Zoom worms are great. 

After fishing, we ate lunch and worked through a hospital book aimed to help kids to cope with their siblings being in the hospital. Carly was eating a salad from Panera and sneaking bites from my cinnamon crunch bagel with honey walnut cream cheese. We learned about syringes, stethoscopes, ventilators, continuous I.V. drip pumps and their poles and many other items that are connected to River. We drew her a picture, wrote her a letter, and made a list of things I could take her so she could find comfort. 

I struggled and fought through this as best as I could. He was present. It was much different than our emotions lesson. He was aware and absorbed the detail, and then asked questions. He still doesn’t know how sick, but We have told him River may never come home. He knows her brain is bleeding. He asked if the doctors had bandaids. I asked him to hold his breath as long as he could. And explained that River has held her breath for too long and it made her brain really sick.

I picked up a piece of rolled salami and asked him to take a bite. He roared back and aggressively lunged at the salami chomping down and ripping the meat like a tiny dog shakes a new plush toy. I told him River can’t bite her food. He said, “I know. She doesn’t have any teeth.” If my mom was sitting in Carly’s seat eating her salad she would say, “you little smart ellick!” Then she would look at me and say, “He is your son. No doubt about it!” Alie can attest, yesterday we taught him that Miller didn’t have teeth. The red things in her mouth that he kept touching were gums. He didn’t appear to be listening, but he was. 

I have a lot going on. I’m trying to do so much and learn so much. I’m trying to be childlike. They are seeing the world and most things for the first time and absorb so much. I’m learning from him as much as he is learning from me. I’m learning from my past and friends who have endured tragedy. They are all reaching out and encouraging me. 

Today I learned a bit of patience and appreciation for a moment. Fielder had just caught his first fish of the day and then stepped in mud up to his knees. He almost lost a sandle. I wanted to be mad, but I remembered something else Leigh Ellen said: “Kids move so fast from one thing to the next. In play therapy we let them roll from one thing to the next and explore.” Fishing therapy was no different. We swapped in the blink of an eye from fishing therapy to mud therapy. The mud between my toes, up to my calves was cold. The birds chirping and soaring above us were calming. The kids splashing in the water now swimming took me back to the lake with friends. Fishing therapy was working. Not like I had expected it was going to go. Not worse. Better. MUD.