Little Fish

223 

There's something like a family of those who know water. They make eye contact and nod upward. Hey. Hey. Surfers, divers, sailors, lifeguards, paddlers, snorkelers, fishers, crabbers. For life or for fun. Hey. 

This water isn't fresh: it's salt. It's waves, it's breakers. It's a thing that's your lover and your buddy and your nemesis and sometimes your mother. It's a thing that rocks you to sleep, the thing that tastes like your tears. And while it is all these things, it teems with billions of other lives than your human ones: lives minuscule to gargantuan.

My first recollection of the ocean is my Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom was handsome, he was my aunt's first love, her only love. He was kind, steady, an athlete, predictable and handsome. She hooked him, she recognized early she had to do it. I think she was 14 or 15, and she asked him to the dance the first chance she got. That was Uncle Tom. Very different from my family, not though not altogether incompatible. We had nice shared family times on holidays. And some times at the beach. I believe they used to rent a house at Newport Beach one week out of the summer. We would go there and visit them during the day.

Later in my life I would live in the water, because the land was 120°. The Mediterranean, at 85°, was cool and sea life better than any TV show.  Before all that, though, in California, this was my first water time. I was so little that the smallest wave broke over my head, standing on the edge. I was scared and crying, alone, for some reason. I remember walking back to the towels, still crying. 

I think my Nana dried me off, then Uncle Tom started to talk to me. He held my hand and walked me back to the ocean. We stood a little ways back from the break, he showed me the rhythm, if memory serves correct (which it may not.) Anyway, in my mind he showed me the rhythm, and he picked me up in his strong Pony League (Dodgers) baseball arms and held me, so my head was even with his own. We watched the wave coming toward us, he told me to take a breath…hold it... Splash !  Wasn't that fun?

My hair was wet, "Now taste the salt. Feel the cold on your skin. Here comes another one, see how it starts is just a small bump then grows? … hold your breath again…" sploosh! That one was a really big. I watched and counted, learned to observe. A few more waves and I'm laughing! Which made Uncle Tom laugh, too.

Soon I didn't ever want to leave. That night I felt the waves In my bed for the first time of many: salt water rocking is like that.

 A few years later, Uncle Tom had a son, Tim. Tim is a surfer. He's more than a surfer, he's an international surfer, and a photographer of surf. He's a graphic arts manager for a surf company: one of those lucky people (Tim would use the word blessed ) who found a way to make his passion his livelihood. Tim waited and married a beautiful woman, and together they made a strong, loving family. 

Our cousin Susan is four years older. She has two girls, Tom's first grand babies. Her husband works in the water cleaning yachts, under and above the surface. Tom was so proud. He grew up as an only child, loving kids, apparently, with two kids and five grand kids, two nieces and a nephew. (My brother and his boys surfed, he does underwater photography, my sister was a jr. lifeguard for a season.) I never saw him with them, but the pictures are rich. He lived a full life.

That Day at the beach was my only memory of doing anything one-on-one with Uncle Tom, we were not close. He wasn't unfriendly, just in the corner. All I knew of Uncle Tom was his pigeons, he had been a paper salesman, other than that he was pretty quiet at our family functions. He sat in the corner of the couch with a smile on his face, legs crossed, arm across the back. Sometimes telling my aunt to not have that glass of wine. Sometimes making a funny comment about the kids, but usually quiet.

Uncle Tom died last year. He had two services, the first one was the regular funeral, large, with lots of his pigeon people and family friends. Afterwards I remembered that ocean experience with him. After he died, during a conversation with my aunt. I recalled that story to her. Only then she told me about their plans for his ashes later in the year and it made perfect sense. 

The second service was on the water: Tim and his surf brothers paddled out with Uncle Tom's ashes to escort him home. That's the way he wanted. My single experience with Uncle Tom turned out to signify his life. I am grateful.

Salt mixed up in water. There's a reason fish represent: in dreams, in religions, all over the world, for millennia. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know it's real. 
Hey.

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble."

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.

Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Psalm 107:23-31