"First My Mother, Forever My Friend"

I picked her up after Kidney dialysis and the adventure began. All she knew was we were taking a trip. Little did she know that the seed had been planted months earlier. During dads stay in the hospital, mom and I were talking old times. Out of the blue mom tells the story of her dad, my grandfather, and how she was his fishing buddy. He started taking her fishing at a very young age. It was their father-daughter time and she loved it. This was news to me. I never knew. I remember her and dad fishing Lake Erie when we lived in Cleveland. Then she went on to say she would love to go fishing one more time if she could see. If she could see! That was the problem. With a second opinion and a great surgeon, mom had a successful eye surgery.

Not only did she love fishing, she loved deer hunting in the mountains of West Virginia. It was an annual event with the entire family, my sister included. But I was never a girl of the outdoors. Not until much later in life. With her health declining I knew I had a chance to share an outdoor sport that I had come to love, fly fishing. It would be our first mother-daughter outdoor adventure and her first time fly fishing.

And my big plans were initiated.

“First My Mother, Forever My Friend”