I’m standing in the Hiwassee. Maybe it’s the hatch or the forsythia—the redbud blooming on the banks. I’m thinking about growing things. I’ve planted trees—a good feeling to chance past years later and see how beautifully one has grown. It’s an odd accomplishment, really. The tree does most of the work. The years whisper past your memory and you look at the full foliage and the tall trunk, and sometimes you can’t remember much detail about the planting or the growing. I’m thinking about fathering—maybe as I’ve planted trees, but with the children I want to believe that I’ve listened better to their whispers—paid attention to the years. Once they shake loose from their youthful necessities and begin to wonder about life, you get a better feel about their growing—still, it’s a lot like looking at the trees. 

Of course you can grow things that have long nasty names, too—the ones that grow inside of you and change what you expected tomorrow might be about—I hadn’t been to the doctor for over ten years. I felt fine. But, I had a check-up a month ago—it wasn’t what I expected.

Now, I find myself noticing things I might have looked at before but not seen. I really don’t feel any different. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’m afraid—sometimes. It’s worse at night, like a cold. It’s different than just saying, "we’ll all die someday," or "part of life is the dying." I’m trying to be okay with it. I think I’ll die better if I can be okay with it.

When I come to the river, something happens. Maybe I understand—I sleep better that night.

One of my children is with me today—my son (I haven’t told anyone about the doctor). My son is a good way out in the river—the Hiwassee is wide. He seems so bold and still so peaceful on the river. I’m not close enough to see his face, but it’s the way he’s standing there—tying on what I know has to be a caddis to match the hatch that’s blowing by in too much wind for me to tie on, or cast a fly. I was fumbling with my knot, and my footing, and might have gotten irritated, but it’s the way he’s standing there that caught my eye. He looks like he belongs to the river—as much a part of the scene as the riffle he’s standing in. 

I watched him earlier mending over some tough current and taking a smart old brown. I know that fish, but I never have been able to raise it. That’s when my mind drifted back to the first day I ever took my son fishing. I was there again—one of those perfect mountain-lake mornings. The kind you can dream about only if you’ve experienced it—flawless. 

The air was cool. The lake was so still. A wisp of air carried the crisp scent of pines and smoke from the fires of early rising campers. The glass surface mirrored the night’s reluctance in dark blue, with the last stars sparkling among the images of tall symmetrical pines that looked black in first light’s reflection. Large fish were rising, and hearts beat faster with each bold predatory roll. 

You stop breathing. There’s no room for any activity except looking, listening—your senses mesmerized. The experience captivates your mind leaving a memory that lures you as soon as you resume breathing.

He hooked his first fish and in a rocket-launch jump it got free. Now he had another one, but didn’t trust himself. "Here, you take the rod and land the fish, I can’t do it," he said. I can hear his four-year old voice right here in the Hiwassee. 

"You’re supposed to loose some, everybody does," I said something to that effect. He landed the fish, the miniature rod I’d made for him bending to its limit, his little arms trembling from the pressure of the fish, the excitement. He touched it and mumbled something, perhaps to the fish. Magic was in the air. 

Usually he chattered constantly when we rode in the boat together. On the way back to the cabin that morning, it had to be twenty years ago, I remember he was silent—already suffering the addiction.

I’m thinking there really is no time—my mind skipped back all those years and then returned me to the Hiwassee where the sun’s now setting behind him. Something else happened that morning years ago. I guess it happened to both of us because fishing together in some mysterious way brings back that experience—keeps it circulating like blood—alive. 

Now I can only see an impressionist’s image of his form standing waist deep in the river. How easy it is to miss out on the growing that whispers at you every day. I’m sad trying to reconcile all the days that have come and gone in between—the ones I can’t remember so clearly or not at all—impressionist days, I guess.

"You hooked everything in this hole, I’m gonna move up stream. Sun’s glare is screwing up my vision." He’s nodding. I see the satisfied smile on his face. My legs are too tired to do much more wading, but my mind is still full of energy. I guess that’s another thing that’s changed. I’ll just park myself for awhile on this log—a fall, a natural bench. 

He just earned his certification as a guide on the Hiwassee—first trip next weekend. He seemed nervous. 

"It’ll be just fine. You’re really good at this," I told him. 

He nodded understanding. Words might not help much, but maybe in saying them we prove we’re watching—listening. 

So here I sit; watching him—listening to the river, thinking life is as it should be. Lots of things are growing. Everything comes and goes doesn’t it—comes and goes but somehow stays. I can still smell the pines and the campfires as if I’m back there again in that mountain-lake morning when my son caught his first fish. 

I want to call to him and share the memory, but I know he might not remember it yet—might not be able to hear it even though it’s alive inside of him. I’ll just think good thoughts about it and send them off to him over the water flowing between us—the water whose sounds hold the whispers that you might not have heard the first time they were spoken. 

I listen to the sound of rivers more carefully now, ever since my brother, Al died a year ago. He and I did a lot of things together—went to war, raised our children…. I put his ashes in the river. Sometimes I hear him, in this river—whispers of his being speaking to me, helping me to understand. "Soon, Al," I tell him. "Soon."

"Hey, Dad, isn’t this great? I’ve never seen them rising like they are today. Let’s fish till dark, okay?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me."

"You look like you have something on your mind, Dad."

"When was the last time I told you that you’re a great son?"

"I don’t know." 

He’s smiling—maybe a little uncomfortable—but he’s listening even though he’s still casting and mending line—keeping the drift just right.

"Well you are."

A bigger smile this time.

"You ever listen to the river?"

"How do you mean?"

"Hear things. Feel things. As if the river is trying to speak to you. We put Uncle Al’s ashes in the river."

"I remember."

"Sometimes I think I can feel him—hear him talking to me."

"Really."

"Maybe it’s just an age thing."

"No, I think I understand. Sometimes I feel something when I’m on a river. It happened once out in Wyoming, up in the Mad River Range. What is that?"

"I don’t know exactly, but it’s something."

"Is that why you want us to put your ashes in the river when you die?"

"I think it is."

"I hope that’s not for a long time. I want my children to know you.’

"Well, if I’m not around, just bring them to the river. Teach them to listen."

"You’ll be around."

I’ve turned away from him, casting in the opposite direction, mending my line—getting a perfect drift and there—I’ve hooked a nice rainbow on a Pale Evening Dun.