Day 57: The girls will be bringing my fishing buddy out of the nursing center to spend the day in the bosom of family. We'll dine together, watch a little football, and then he'll nod off in his chair as old folks do, the younger people caught up in conversations he cannot follow. If he wakes, perhaps we'll talk about the fish we've caught, the hikes to mountain lakes, the people we've met and the adventures we've shared in our long friendship. We'll laugh again over the "shortcut" which took us five and a half hours out of our way and ran the gas tank down to fumes, and at the mishap which cemented us as piscine partners (on that day, I fell face-first into the lake). We'll speak of shad and surf perch, of lunker trout and nets filled with writhing smelt; the smell of tide flats and labor of digging mud shrimp will come to our memories in brighter, gayer colors than they wore at the time.
If I am to be thankful upon this day, it is for recollections such as these and the chance to re-live them with a man who has been as important to me as my own father. If, as I suspect, this is our last Thanksgiving together, I am truly thankful for the chance to be with him one more time.
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