Fish

You got on stage with a sheet of yellow, lined paper wrinkled in your hand. You took a glance at the open casket and then moved to the right, next to his portrait.

You started, “Thank you all for being here today. I knew he had some friends, but I didn’t know he had this many.”

You grinned slightly, and the audience let out a laugh.

“He was a great man, uh he taught me a lot. Some of you may know about my father, so it was really my grandad who filled a lot of that space. Patience, gentleness, gratitude. He taught me a lot of stuff. Not sitting down and lecturing, but just in the way he lived, I figure that’s why so many of you are here today.”

“He often encouraged me to be present; to do the things that I was doing, no matter how minor, something as simple as eating dinner, without doing anything else. It was something he lived by; you’d be hard-pressed to find him reading a newspaper and listening to the radio at the same time.”

The guy next to me grinned at that briefly.

“A couple summers ago while I was helping him with his garden, he’d tell me stories of his youth, just as he’d done when I was a kid. But I had heard those stories as a kid. I’d speak past him, trying to reach the end of the stories. Or I’d nod along, following the motions of listening. I guess somehow I thought that the sooner he finished those stories, the sooner I’d get to know a new or different part of him. But that was it. That was him. Those stories. Stories I only remember the endings to. And now there’s—” Your voice faltered briefly, and you turned to face his portrait.

Naja began walking up to the stage, gathering her dress at the steps, and then holding your hand. You looked down at her and smiled. She looked out at all of us, vaguely aloof. You wiped your eyes, pocketed the sheet, and continued, “Before he got too bad, he’d spend a lot of time with Naja. He enjoyed fishing, and Naja liked worms; match made in heaven.”

You chuckled a bit to yourself and continued, “I never got it, but she did and he did. And whenever he’d drop her off, he’d hang around for a bit, chat — they’d rarely ever talk about the fish. It was about a bird they saw or how tangled the rod was when Gramps took it out of the boot — and then he’d leave. Naja would walk him to the door. Each time. And she’d stay there until she watched that beat-up Peugeot of his that we all love pull out the driveway.”

A few people threw their heads back in the audience, snickers rippling through.

“I guess uh, what I’m trying to say is…” You paused for a moment and then, “Yeah, that’s it. I appreciate everyone who came out today.”

A light pitter-patter of applause trickled through the audience as you and Naja came back to our seats. You sat down and wiped your eyes once more. I reached for your hand, which was resting on your lap, and squeezed it. You bowed your head and then, looking up at me, you smiled.