The Man in the Boat

March 13th is my brother Tom’s birthday! I’ve been thinking about him most of the week and about what I could write on “his” day that would do justice to the impact his life had on mine, besides the fact that I miss him terribly at times.

I decided the best way to honor him on his birthday would be to copy what I feel was his best written “work”, written shortly after his son’s tragic death. They were together on that day, and Tom wrote this while in the hospital recovering from the boating accident. Tom would pass away too soon afterwards from health issues not related to the accident.

It was, I assume, Tom's way of saying goodbye to his only son, Tommy. I like to think of it as a “collaborative” project between Tom and me, and I cherish this thought. I hope he would approve of my description of “our” project.

Every time I go fishing I will remember that the last moments of Tommy's life were filled with love. Because I know how much he loved me and that we had spent a blissful afternoon; and we were excited about the prospect of spending the remainder of the day together fishing, swimming and laughing--completely content.

Some time ago, I was asked the question, "What do you think are the one or two words that describe how you would like to live the rest of your life?" I responded with "contentment and serenity." Afterwards, I was asked to draw what my vision of "contentment and serenity" would look like.

Let me interject here. Tom was a remarkable artist who had no formal training. He could look at any scene or object and re-create it in any medium you asked him to—pen and ink, pencil, crayon—I was so envious of his talent I could scream! I might add that his daughter Katie has the same talent on a much grander (and trained) scale. A true God-given gift that she inherited from her father, I think.

I drew a picture in my mind of a man sitting, no, reclining in a simple rowboat, with a straw hat providing his only disguise from the mid-day sun. Far in the distance the shoreline doubled as the horizon, with images of some agricultural outbuildings, surrounded by harvested cornfields, somewhat overgrown by time. The remainder of the horizon was in its natural state, as one would expect to see on any leisurely Sunday drive in the mid-west states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana or Michigan; Tall cottonwood trees, Dutch elms, oaks, river birch, and eucalyptus.

The sun was giving the most magnificent reflection of all of Nature's beauty on the water, ever-changing with the passing of the day. Out of nowhere the sweet, warm afternoon breeze would cause the sunlight to sparkle through the leaves of the trees on the horizon; falling, then without warning, dancing with the boat through the rippling carpet of water.

Tom must have had more to say and was interrupted from his thoughts somehow, because he began another sentence but didn't finish it…'Possibly the most serene notion of this beautiful passage of time is that…"

As I read the passage, I could see what he was seeing as clearly as if he had painted it. Since he had not finished the last sentence (and this is where my “collaboration” comes in) I would like to think that the last sentence would be…’Possibly the most serene notion of this beautiful passage of time is that…I am the man in the boat’.

So, as my birthday present to Tom I pray, and I ask everyone reading this to join me, that since he didn’t have the “contentment” and “serenity” he so hoped for in this life that he is enjoying both now wrapped in the arms of Our Blessed Mother in the presence of her Son.