My father-in-law loved fishing.

Today, after the funeral service, we all went back to my brother-in-law’s house. There were lots of relatives and friends gathered there–and lots of food. We talked, reminisced, and laughed.

We were gathered there to honor a good man, but we were also gathered to show our care and concern for the bonds of family and friendship that my father-in-law had helped nurture and support. We were now entrusting those same relationships to each other to carry forward.

As the day wore on and folks started to trickle out, my oldest boy and I went down to the small pond that sits at the edge of my brother-in-law’s property. My oldest boy caught his first bass at this pond, with his grandfather’s help.

He fished for about an hour, maybe less, and caught four decent sized bass. This pond doesn’t get fished too often, so the fish are pretty naive when it comes to rubber worms. We only had one rod between the two of us, so mostly he did the fishing, and I just watched (that and took the hook out of the fish–it’s still not my son’s strongest suit).

We really didn’t talk too much about his grandfather while we were out there. But at one point, I did comment that I thought his grandfather would have been pleased to know that his grandson was spending this day fishing, as a way of honoring his memory.

My son nodded, and then cast out his line one more time.