It was rare that I went fishing with you
Since you insisted on starting out while stars still poked through sky
Glinting on the glassy lake
Before being outshined by the sun
Submerged in the spring-fed lake
Suddenly in my water-filled ears
Comes the sound
like a swarm of cicadas singing on a summer night
I plant my feet in the sugar sand and stand
To see you as you stop the motor
Smoothly coast toward the dock
And slip a rope over and through, over and through the tie-out.
You step on to the dock and hand me a stringer of walleye.
Tonight’s dinner—born from your dawn excursion.
You kiss me on the forehead.
The scent of your sunscreen fills my nose.
It is that scent that still makes me think of you
When I stand and smooth on moisturizer every morning
When I rub sunscreen on my husband’s back on a trip to the beach
When I bend down to give my grandma a kiss hello or goodbye
She misses you; I miss you.
Everyone who loves you misses you:
Those who thought of you as a second father
Those who called on you when they needed help
The youngest deacon in the church’s history
The Stephen Minister who changed a stranger’s life in the hospital
A man of faith, a fisherman, a fisher of men
Who loved only God more than he loved his family
How does one write a sermon for such a man?
Whose well-worn, marked-up Bible fails to point to a single favorite verse.
I closed my eyes and the scent of sunscreen overwhelmed me,
And my mind was flooded with an image of a resurrected Jesus cooking breakfast on the beach.
