It didn’t feel like we were saying goodbye, but there’s no better description for the act of spreading ashes, is there? My family stood in the big river together, gripping each other for support beyond steady footing on the riverbed as we sent Roger’s final ashes into the water.

Behind us, the steep riverbank was filled with tiers of Roger’s people: there were more than thirty fishing buddies, fellow conservationists, adopted daughters and sons, dear friends, and a dog or two. Everyone had said their own words at the river’s edge to Roger. Words of love and gratitude and sadness poured into the river along with his ashes.

We all stood there, between the tall grasses and the low-hanging tree, and we listened to the river.  All our words and ashes swirled in the eddy of the Indicator Hole, and we lived in our own memories of Roger in this place. Roger loved this spot and fished here so often that a local river guide had even dropped flowers at the Indicator Hole when he’d heard the news.

I learned to cast under this tree. I remember standing in the river waist-deep with my back against the tall grasses as Roger tried to teach me to be patient, quiet, and calm. I remember fearing the hordes of bugs that landed in my hair and on my shoulders, even as I tied their facsimiles onto my line. I never fell in love with fishing, but this weekend, standing in the Deschutes River once more, I understood the patience and the calm more than ever before.

From Saturday’s celebration in Portland to Sunday’s ceremony at the Deschutes River cabin, I don’t think anyone actually said goodbye to Roger this weekend. We simply remembered him. Fishing buddies shared classic Roger quips from the river, dear friends re-told well-worn stories, and family shared childhood memories.

We remembered the mighty yet gentle patriarch who loved oatmeal and blueberries in the morning, naps in the afternoon, and being with his family and friends in every other waking hour. He loved nature’s balance and fought for most of his life to conserve Oregon’s freshwater systems. He fell in love with a strong-willed woman and helped raise three more, not to mention the countless women (and men) he mentored in fly fishing and in life.

I had a hard time thinking of him as Grampie this weekend, even though that’s what I’ve called him my entire life. The name, given to him by the indomitable Eve (aka Gommie), felt limiting when I was surrounded by countless others whose lives were changed by the man called Roger, or Daddy. He was only ever Grampie to John and me. That will always be true, but this weekend I felt the full truth that he has always been so much more.

I did have one other name for Roger: Olvidus. When I was a teenager, I began writing stories for my grandparents instead of buying them Christmas gifts, which they never seemed that interested in. But they loved stories about Olvidus (Roger) and Absurdia (my grandmother Eve). Year after year I built them a world of talking raccoons, fish that transformed into family house cats, mischievous birds, and Christmas escapades.

After Roger — or Grampie, Daddy, Olvidus — passed away, I wrote him one final story. I recently realized, with some horror, that it’s the first true writing I’ve done since Eve — or Gommie, Mamney, Absurdia — passed away in 2016 and I wrote her a final story. The writing drought is obvious in the timestamps in this beloved blog and in the graveyard of frustrated drafts on my desktop.

I think Grampie and Gommie would be devastated to think that their deaths prompted me to stop writing, which is in turn devastating for me to even start to process. This post is the beginning of my way back to that part of myself.

Below is the story I wrote for Roger. This is how he always joked that he’d like to go, but putting aside his macabre sense of humor, this is how I like to picture him: standing in the river at the Indicator Hole, tying a fly as the morning sun hits his home river before the world awakes.

***

Of a Man and His River

Olvidus gently reeled in his line, listening to the soft, wheezing whir of the reel as it turn in his grip. He snipped off the fly and picked a caddis fly, tried and true, off his vest. His deft fingers, still nimble from decades of practice, tied the fly, his hands working independently from his mind. Olvidus looked up and around as he worked.

His river. He could feel the steady cold water pressing reassuringly through the waders. He wasn’t as steady on the riverbed as he once was, when he stood tall and sure in the current. He had young legs and a young mind then, confident that he could conquer the river and her fish. Now, he knew better. He knew every foothold, he knew every eddy. He didn’t have the balance to stand as he once did, but the water promised a new balance. His river would hold him.

The day’s morning sun was just emerging. He could hear the bugs humming awake and the light wind across the water. The river carried voices he knew all too well from upstream, where breakfast was just beginning. Olvidus heard birds chirping in the tree that hung low over the river.

Above all, he heard and felt the river. His home river. He’d stood here through births and deaths, laughter and long conversations. He’d stood here after fire, loss, and rebuilding. The river’s secrets were its own, and Olvidus had spent a lifetime learning but a few of them.

A tawny back emerged at the river’s surface in front of Olvidus, and a speckled head emerged briefly. The fish pressed firmly against Olvidus’ leg, reassuring him as the current had done. He looked at the fish – a steelhead, what else? – and he chuckled, replacing the fly on his vest.

He started to marvel at his luck, and then he was overcome by gratitude. He felt so grateful for that morning, the warming sun, the dappled quiet of the river. Grateful that for all of his years exploring the river’s bends, he knew this eddy would always be enough. Olvidus understood that the long, graceful arc of his line had never been in defiance of nature, but was instead those casts were his best attempt to become part of the beauty around him.

The fish bumped his leg again. He looked down and realized that he was encompassed by fish, holding him upright in the river. Hundreds and hundreds of fish crowded in a wide circle around him. If Olvidus were a more fanciful man, he’d suspect that he’d met many of these fish before on the other end of his line. And yet here they were again. Olvidus knew why.

This river. His river. Olvidus took one bright pink steelhead fly from his vest. He checked his watch, patted his vest for his glasses, and set his rod in the reeds behind him. He held the bright fly firmly in his weathered grip, and scanned the rim of the hills above him, sunlight just pouring now into the canyon. His gaze returned to his lifelong companions below him.

“Alright then,” he said with just a tinge of impatience. “Let’s go already.”