Loss, Fishing and Healing

June 2, 2018

Some of my greatest memories revolve around being with friends and family, fishing. I cherish two in particular the most.

One, the first time I took my son, Alex, fishing. He was probably three years old, and a friend had invited us out on his bass boat. We rigged Alex up with a worm and bobber, and eventually he caught a small perch. He was absolutely ecstatic, his high-pitched squeaks of joy echoing across the water. He desperately wanted to take that fish home to show his mom and then cook and eat it. So that’s what we did. I think I needed a scalpel to fillet that fish.

My second go-to memory requires some background: I didn’t grow up in an outdoors family. I had never seen my dad fish before. In fact, I was introduced to fishing by a good friend of his who would take me out as a youth. But a year before his 70th birthday, my dad sent me a link to an Alaskan guide outfit, suggesting it might be cool to do. Well, we didn’t get to Alaska, but we did end up in a friend’s cabin on the Upper Manistee. Both of my brothers flew in, the guys from The Northern Angler in Traverse City came down to teach my dad and my two non-fly-fishing brothers how to cast, and after about 1,000 answer-the-phone drills and “You’re not painting the ceiling of an igloo,” Dad almost had it down.

It was a phenomenal weekend. We drank too much wine, smoked too many cigars, and made a ton of great memories. I even think we fished a little.

My son, Alex, who was home from college for the summer and working at The Northern Angler shop, came out after work. We all watched him from the riverside deck as he worked his way upstream and around the bend, out of view.

Fishing and, particularly, fly fishing have a way of being simultaneously solitary and communal. It is one of the things I most appreciate about the sport. You’re meditating in a Zen-like state, watching your fly work down a seam, and then building some of the best relationships you can have over stories around a fire that night.

That weekend with my Dad and brothers was also the first time that I broke down and talked with anyone besides my wife that Alex was struggling with depression. I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do, and nobody I interacted with talked about mental illness. We were all concerned, but none of us knew how to process it.

Alex had confided in my wife shortly after getting home from college that he wasn’t doing well. We encouraged him to see a counselor, and he did. He carried that on back at college, and when we sat down over winter break, he seemed to be in a much better spot. We would fish together when we could, and he would get out with some of the other guys from the shop or alone.

After graduation, he moved back home and got a job as a staff accountant with a local firm. He and his sister moved into an apartment together. Around Thanksgiving that year we found out that he had been diagnosed as bi-polar and manic depressive. He had been working with a doctor, trying to find a medication that worked. He would consistently tell us how he was doing OK; he was looking forward to taking some time off in June and had bought a plane ticket to see a good friend of his in Washington, D.C. He was planning a long cross-country motorcycle trip.

Then, at 7:45am, April 28, 2017, my phone rang at work. My wife, hysterical, screamed for me to get to the kids’ apartment. I arrived to see police and emergency vehicles swarming the complex. As I ran to the apartment, my daughter came around the corner, her face white as a sheet, tears pouring down. She had come downstairs from her bedroom to find that Alex had hung himself in the night.

Our world and everything we had known was shattered. Our reality from this day forward would be different. As I tried to process what had happened, I read and re-read parts from “A River Runs Through It,” that now strike a different cord for me. What could I have done differently? What should I have done?

I kept thinking about a friend of mine from high school. He had also committed suicide. The one vivid thing I remember is his father weeping over his body, pleading for him to wake up so they could go fishing. At the time I didn’t fully understand the significance of that plea. I do now. It is not just for the loss of a son. It is also for the loss of missed and future opportunities to be together and make memories.

Fishing continues to be a part of my life and a bigger part of my healing. Brian Pitser and the family at The Northern Angler have been a big part of this. They organized, in a very short time, the First Annual Cheese Cup — Alex’s nickname at the shop was “Cheese” — held the second weekend in June. Last year the warm-water fly-fishing tournament raised $10,000 for Child and Family Services of Northwest Michigan, which operates Third Level Crisis Center. Third Level operates a 24-hour crisis line and is a call center for the National Suicide Hotline. If you find yourself in northern Michigan on June 9 this year, come out and join the tournament. If you don't want to fish, come by afterwards and enjoy some time with a great community of people.

To make memories with your fishing buds and support suicide prevention, consider attending the second annual Cheese Cup. Pre-registration for anglers is required; non-competitors welcome. Details on p. TK of this issue.