The wisdom of the father, the wonder of the son,
Wander together, ’til this life is done-
And comes time to remember, all that was one.
As I lie dying, if I’ve yet the mind to know,
Where I’ve been, and how I came, and why I’ll hate to go,
Then spare me a few minutes more, I hope, to recall
as he had me believe,
The small and simple little things, that will make it the
easier to leave.
One last thing I ask of you Lord, before I cross that final fiord. When life is at ebb, and I must meet the unseen, let me bide a small mindful time, somewhere between.
Before my body goes to dust, and what’s left passes to vapor, I’ll beg of Thee, one last kindly favor. Grant me a presence high in dark timber, and give me a few cognizant minutes to remember.
Allow me the chance to die a good death, in whatever time that might be left. That I not leave this world in a daze of medicinal dementia … you’d kinda like to go, Lord, the way Godsent ya. Or be saddled with any other unwillful baggage. Just spare me to navigate a sane, cogent passage.
Just let me leave by my own inner compass, perhaps by way of the Argentina pampas. I don’t really mean it; you know I’m just kidding. I’ll try very hard to do your last bidding. But should I get lost, I’d like to apply my own mental salve. I promise, Lord, I’ll get there, as always I have.
Before the final act, and the last curtain falls, memories of yesterday hard to me call. So grant me a stay of serenity I plead, to have in these last moments of need … and a fair few minutes of consciousness … so its summons I may heed. To ponder some of the things that held life together, through the strain and strife, and foulest of weather.
The small happy moments, the happiest ways of my life, the songs and sonnets my soul sang thrice. To pull back a last time, all the things I loved most, then Hell …I mean Heck, Lord … just make me a ghost.
Just a short few minutes before I’m departed, to think back a little to where I started. To remember again those few, rare occasions, when perfection bowed and bent to my persuasion. And maybe a smidgen of the wisdom that saw me through, when in the winter of my years, the nights became blue.
I won’t stay long, just a friendly, few minutes. Before I’m gone forever, beyond life’s limits. It’s simple things, My Lord I ask, that for You to bestow, will be hardly a task.
In those last ethereal hours, in whatever time you’ll tender, all I really want is to simply remember … how rain smelled. How snow fell. How, sometimes in late Autumn, Indian Summer dwelled.
Dragonflies. Moon pies. June bugs. The dew on the mouth of a whiskey jug.
A doe and a fawn. Pink and lemon dawns. An old fishing camp and a lantern on a dock. Steaming oyster stew in an old black pot.
A whitetail buck. A run of good luck. Life on your turf. Big chopper bluefish, under screaming gulls, in a foaming fall surf.
Among those things, I’d hope there to be: old fishing plugs, my Granpa and me. Hickory smoked bar-b-que, hush puppies, banana pudding and iced tea. When, before all the dove hunts, there was still you and me.
I’d wish to hear a Bobwhite, just at eve, call again from the garden the old-folks would leave. There were so many small things that made me believe.
Just to think of that morning all those many years ago, blustery, and gray over the broad Pamlico, when Ol’ Dan fought near a mile across that windblown old sound. And fought all the harder to get back again. Duty-bound, as ever, to fetch back that bull can.
Somewhere in the ether in those last minutes to be, won’t it be neat if there’s a full persimmon tree. A hard frost to follow and Thanksgiving to be. The black ‘n tan hound you had when you were a boy, the possum you chased to bring back the joy.
“Hurry along, Boy,” my Dad will say again to me. “Shoot that bushytail up tall in that tree.” I believe there’ll be Christmas and icicles on the eves. Brandy cakes and spiced cider and a house that believes. A new hunting coat waiting under the tree, a first .22 rifle all yours to be … your mother still here, to come look-and-see.
There’ll be sharptails and Huns, a hat and bandana. Big-going dogs, and a horse at a canter. Those high, long plains … to bring back Montana. The chuckle of an elk, in the dawn before day. Canada honkers stooping low over a bay …the sky above all troubled and gray. A storm blowing through … we shott hem all day.
A memory floating back from a distant December, the Madison River it seems to resemble. Crossing it then brought both a dare and atremble. There was ice on its banks, and it rolled cold in its bed. But we had nymphs and ‘buggers and big browns on the redds.
One of the other things I’d hope to remember, is how the Minnesota grouse woods looked, the first day of November. How the birds did their best to avoid my good setters. How they pointed and held them, straight to the letter. Later that night it rained on the cabin, and way in the morning when it seemed it would stay, it quit quite politely, just before day. The dogs at my legs, had slept in the covers. The best I ever had, though there were a good few others. How good it felt, when they stirred and yawned … urging me up … to be out and gone.
Lord, grant me back again, the day that followed. Birds galore, in every rill and hollow. To relive again as my hours drain away. Damn, here it is, just like I prayed!
Remind me as well, how it has felt to grow older, to find so many gone, who had hunted and fished at my shoulder. It was lonesome then and hard to go on. But now here they are again, back young and strong. Hard to believe, it’s just like they looked, when we ran every river and fought by the book.
Thad, my son, do you remember our third African safari? When I took my first elephant and you were my askari. Then, later in the Natal, when the trackers spread round the voodoo … be damned if next day, you didn’t get your greatest kudu.
It’s all flooding back now, though often a bit vaguely. My time must be nearing, the doctors and nurses talk so gravely. But how grand it is, faced with all this, to lie here and linger, and so wonderfully reminisce. Drop the bloody curtain and bring on eternity, I’ll just say one more time, Thank God for the journey.
Gosh, Thad, it was good to bet here together. We did it ten times again, hell come and let ‘er. Ruark and Hemingway — by God — never did it no better.
I’ll never forget that old dugga that stood on the bluff. Or how he came for us, snotty, stiff and tough. Died bloody at my feet, before my old Rigby double. Back then I was brash, considered it no trouble. A brave old bugger, to fall and falter, when looking back, maybe I was the one who oughta.
It was his country; I was just there. I pushed him hard, and he took up the dare. Soon now I’ll join him, and that all seems fair.
You know, my Boy … if I could put him back again, I would. Now I’m dying too, I wish I could.
Be brave, my Son, for I can see you but dimly. Keep logs on the fire and smoke in your chimney.
It’s cold in here. Feels like December. But there’s so much yet, I’ve need to remember.
“Whoa, Bess! I’m coming.” She was my first dog. Standing that night, pointed across a log. Close by the swamp, under a full moon. Woods so bright, you could have treed a coon. The birds blew up,15 strong. Two fell back, and then they were gone.
The last time we hunted was on an old Georgia wagon, every dog pointed birds … their tails were a-waggin’. I shot pretty well that day, though I don’t mean to be braggin’.
Bess was my first, those days so long past. But it’s as hard now to leave Ches … he’ll be my last.
Of all the things I’ve loved, dogs were my life. Only one thing I loved more, and that was my wife. I thank God I had ’em, now that my minutes wax lean, ’cause I can go out thinking of the blessings they brought, all the years between.
I’m slipping fast now, and I’m losing my way. There’s a mist drifting in, not much longer to stay.
But that’s all right, let come what may.
For Heaven, I recall … whether I make it or not … was never that far away …
Life can be likened to ascending a mountain. The higher you climb, the more years you have beneath you, the farther you can see, the more unobstructed the view, the more you understand.
From A Higher Hill finds Mike Gaddis atop the enlightening vantage of almost eight decades. Looking back over the vast and enthralling sporting landscape of a life well lived. And ahead, to anticipate and savor whatever years are left to come.
Upon this lofty precipice, one of the most celebrated and insightful sporting authors of our time again reaches beyond himself, this time retrieving sixty-five more episodic explorations of the sporting life, the whole of which transcend contemporary perspective, and ascend to rare and unexcelled poignancy. Buy Now
