I was standing in a river in New York with my boys, chasing steelhead, when my phone rang.
My friend told me he had been fighting cancer for a year.
A full year.
The chemo had been beating him up, making him weak and taking more out of him than he ever expected. Suddenly, those short, vague texts over the past few months made sense. “I wish I could be there.” “I hope I get to fish with you again.”
I met him years ago working the Scott Fly Rod booth at a show. He was a big guy, kind of intimidating at first, but once we started talking, we hit it off. Fly fishing has a way of breaking down walls and bringing people together.
Over the years, we stayed in touch. We fished together when we could. I brought my boys and Stac down to Florida and he showed us his water. It wasn’t just fishing. It was friendship.
Not long after I met him, his life changed forever. His son was thrown from a horse and killed. I watched a guy who was full of life and energy fall into a deep depression. For years, he wasn’t the same.
But slowly, piece by piece, he came back. Enough to smile again. Enough to fish again.
And now he’s fighting cancer.
I’ve noticed he doesn’t post fishing reports anymore. No pictures, no stories, no grip-and-grins. He’s not fishing much these days. He’s just trying to fight.
That’s when it hit me.
I think time means something different depending on where you are in life.
In my 20s, I thought I was busy. It was work, friends and never enough hours in the day.
In my 30s and 40s, it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about my kids, building a business and trying to do both well. It always felt like something was getting missed.
Now, it still feels like I don’t have enough time to do what I love — fish and guide — because of work and responsibilities.
The truth is, I’m lucky. I just forget that when I’m in the middle of it.
Another friend of mine, Peter, called me a few years ago. I remember exactly where I was. I had just wrapped up a day of guiding and was heading to dinner with a client when my phone rang.
He told me he had brain cancer.
There’s no good way to hear that. It just stops you in your tracks.
Peter and his wife own Striking Gold Jewelers in Ellsworth. They’re old-school in the best way, true craftsmen. They don’t just sell jewelry. They create it, piece by piece, with their own hands.
Peter is one of the most talented people I know. Not just as a jeweler, but as a builder. He was making fiberglass fly rods with real gold guides and selling them to people all over the country. They were works of art.
I met him back when I was working for UPS in Ellsworth. In the winters, when things slowed down, I’d sit on his porch tying flies. What started as passing time turned into something more. I began teaching him how to tie, then how to fly fish. Before long, we had built a real friendship, all because of fly fishing.
His wife, Leesa, still sends emails to a group of us with updates. He’s getting weaker, but he’s still fighting.
I think about another man I used to deliver to when I was working for UPS. He told me stories about fishing Moosehead Lake and how much he loved being on the water. You could hear it in his voice — those memories meant everything to him.
If you asked him what he wanted, it wouldn’t be money or things.
He’d say more time.
Lately, I keep seeing people share a page called miracle4jeff.com. I don’t know Jeff personally, but I don’t think you need to. He’s a fly fisherman now spending his days on dialysis, in and out of the hospital, hoping for a transplant and a chance to get back in the water.
Recently, I made a decision. I took my wife to Florida. Not for a long trip, not for a week or two. Just for a weekend.
My friends thought I was crazy. All that travel for a couple of days?
We flew out Friday and were back home by Sunday night.
No fishing. No big plans.
Just time together.
We drank, we laughed, we danced. We walked and talked, really talked, without distractions. For a couple of days, everything else faded away and it was just us.
It was worth every second.
You don’t find time.
You make it.
