Having suffered what my doctor referred to as a mild “heart episode” two summers ago, I’ve become more conscious of the fact that I’m not going to be here forever and that I better think of an epitaph and even a gravestone for my final resting place or whether I should be cremated and my ashes spread in a local river. As I get older, I realize that I read the obituaries in my local newspaper with attention to details, not only to see if any of my contemporaries have died, but to get some ideas about my own obituary. We also know that one’s surviving spouse gets the final say on what a person’s epithet will be or what the funeral service will consist of.
I’ve seen lots of fishing-related epitaphs/admonitions like these: “I hope my spouse does not sell my fishing gear for what I told her I paid for it.” Some epitaphs are short: “He’s done a-catching cod/And gone to meet his God.” Some are longer, for example, this 19th-century angler: “Here lies poor, but honest/Bryan Tunstall; he was a most expert angler,/until Death, envious of his Merit,/threw out his line, hook’d him, and landed him here the 21st day of April 1790.”
My children gave me a framed “Fisherman’s Prayer” that hangs on my wall with these words: “God, grant that I may live to fish until my dying day, And, when it comes to my last cast, I then most humbly pray, When in the Lord’s safe landing net I’m peacefully asleep, That in His mercy I be judged As big enough to keep.”
For someone named Fish, wordsters can have fun with something like this: “Worms are bait for fish/But here’s a certain change: Fish is bait for worms – Isn’t that really strange?”
Another epitaph ended with some words about the dead man’s favorite hobby: “‘Gone fishing,’ the sign said/That hung upon the door./An angel had put it there./God was waiting on the shore.”
Some choose to have high-tech laser etchings done of a jumping fish, its species to be determined by individual taste or just the meaningful words “Gone Fishing” on the tombstone. Other choices for words: “Home is the fisherman. He’s home from the lake.”
The picture here shows a Cornish Memorial to fishermen lost at sea. The townspeople wanted to erect an official tribute to the dangers the fishermen of their town and of all fishing towns face every day. Residents knew that some of the bodies of the fishermen were never found and therefore have no land grave. In that case, a cenotaph is erected. It’s an empty tomb that remembers all those who did not return from the sea.
Kevin McCarthy, the very much alive and author of “South Florida Waterways” (2013 – available at amazon.com for $7), can be reached at ceyhankevin@gmail.com.