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Most everyone has an inspirational person in their life.
A teacher, a relative or mentor that helps to give direction to us as we fumble and negotiate our perilous way through life.
For me, that person was my sister Esther.
Truth be told, she was more like a mother to me. Making sure that her little brother who romped through life with little direction, and even fewer rules, had some form of caring discipline to keep him from straying to far from an honest life.
Some may argue that my being a fisherman and writer would make her a complete failure in her attempts to achieve that goal, but they would be wrong in expressing that notion.
Cancer is a terrible thing.
It took my sister from this earth at the age of 26. Breast cancer to be exact.
I was 18 at the time, and you just might as well have reached into my chest and tore my heart out.
Cancer at any age is scary, but to be told at age 24 that your life is in peril can be devastating. My sister handled it with the most dignity, courage and strength that I have ever witnessed. By the time chemotherapy, breast and lymph node removal,and the spreading to her bones had taken it's toll on her, she looked like an eighty year old women-yet her smile never left her soul and she still only thought of others first. Right up to the planning of her own funeral.
Didn't want anyone else to have to go through that trouble.
Esther was a teacher by trade, and a Saint by virtue. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from college, loved children, yet never realized that joy,having found out about the cancer just prior to trying for her first child.She never missed a birthday or holiday celebration. Esther loved life, was intelligent, responsible, overly caring, and generous.
Pretty much everything I wasn't.
Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment was still in it's infancy back in 1974. In fact, at first they told her to go home and not worry about it, that it probably was just some fatty cysts.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
What does this have to do with fishing? What does this have to do with a fishing blog?
Everything.
An organization called Casting For Recovery, a non-profit group of support and education for women who have, or have had breast cancer, offers weekend retreats to help promote healing both physically and mentally while learning the sport of fly fishing. The retreats are held in natural settings and offer counseling, stress relief, as well as the gentle excercise that fly fishing offers.
Casting For Recovery offers these retreats at no cost to participants. They provide lodging,meals and instruction. They have volunteer physical therapists, psychotherapists,and professional fly fishing instructors on staff. Most of all, they offer dignity and hope.
If you are a true fisherman or fisherwoman, then you can certainly understand the value of using any form of fishing as therapy,and it is great to see a program like this exist to help women get back onto the road of recovery.
What can you do?
Go to www.castingforrecovery.org
AND GIVE.
If you have ever had or known a family member or friend who has gone through breast cancer, you will know the trauma and fear that comes with it- for all involved. But obviously, for the victim itself it is life changing at best, and devastating at worst.
I know it altered my life. Almost everything major I do in my life, still comes from my sister's influence. Even my living in Oregon was influenced by a final trip we made together just before she died. Even her last months were spent giving me proper direction.
In many ways I feel that I am living two lives.
One for myself-and one that was never realized.
I recently finished my first book, The Fish Wrap, which is about the furthest thing I or anybody would have ever thought would come from my hands. By no stretch of the imagination would I even consider myself a professional writer, but the book was done as a fun project and it was done to honor my sister's inspiration and is dedicated to her memory.
Also, as a dedication to her memory, I am going to give half the proceeds from the book to Casting For Recovery so that others can do what Esther never got a chance to do.
Recover.
Please give to Casting For Recovery.
A.J. Klott is a writer of fishing stories and the people that surround the fishing world. His first book was published in December of 2005, and is available at his website at: http://www.twoguyswithflys.com
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