He was happy feeling the gentle pulling and then he felt something hard and unbelievably heavy. It was the weight of the fish and he let the line slip down, down, down, unrolling off the first of the two reserve coils. As it went down, slipping lightly through the old man's fingers, he still could feel the great weight, though the pressure of his thumb and finger were almost imperceptible.
"What a fish," he said. "He has it sideways in his mouth now and he is moving off with it."
Then he will turn and swallow it, he thought. He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen. He knew what a huge fish this was and he thought of him moving away in the darkness with the tuna held crosswise in his mouth. At that moment he felt him stop moving but the weight was still there. Then the weight increased and he gave more line. He tightened the pressure of his thumb and finger for a moment and the weight increased and was going straight down.
Santiago will not say his hopes aloud because doing so will jinx him. The fish won't take the bait, and he will return home for the 85th day without a catch. Another example of the spoken word somehow having the power of a spell or hex. Good or bad luck. Blessing or curse.
This day has been an emotional mixed bag. At my office, I would find myself staring at the wall in front of me for ten minutes, thinking of my sister, Rose. Then I would snap back to reality and the task at hand, which happens to be a huge grant. I'd be fine one moment and crying the next.
Death and funerals tend to raise the bar when it comes to emotions, bringing out the best and worst in family. Small grudges that have simmered for years become Olympic triathlons. Large hurts transform into Herculean labors of spite. Family members are grieving, going through all the normal stages--denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance--and they get stuck. They remain angry or sad, and they take it out on everyone around them. Instead of coming together to help each other deal with the loss, families splinter and fight.
I'm trying to avoid stoking the fires. At the moment, the wound of my sister Rose's death is raw and open. I am going to allow myself to just . . . feel. I refuse to let anyone turn this time into a blood sport. For me, these next couple weeks are about Rose and honoring her spirit and memory properly. That means loving even the most difficult people. Because that's what Rose did her whole life. Loved unconditionally.
I will probably fail at this. I'm human and imperfect. I admit that freely. My hope is that, by the day of Rose's funeral, nobody is dead, bleeding, or on a suicide watch.
Saint Marty is only half-joking.
A poem about the last time my whole family was together, before death entered the scene . . .
Family Picture
by: Martin Achatz
All of us together for the first time in about ten years and the cameras crack like machine guns and people yell, "Wait, just one more!" as my nine-month-old daughter screams in my wife's arms, wanting DOWN and AWAY, insistent, and my wife paces back-and-forth because we've been waiting all day for everybody to be here, Fred from L.A., Kevin from across town, Paul from Iron Mountain, Mary from her five kids, on and on: Fred's new wife Diane, blonde and loud with laughter, herself an only child, glows in this roomful of family, family, family--so much family that the windows are sweating with breath and everyone is itching for the Pizza Hut guy to show up to feed us, so hungry from being together we could eat each other.
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