Finally took out the boat. Mixed emotions.

The boat has been stuck in our lawn since a week or so before Joel died. I was going to rewire the trailer and had big plans for us over the summer. Joel loved The Mosquito Lagoon. To go there would require night travel and I didn't want to go down I-4 with the lights out on the trailer. I had all the parts and a new wiring harness. I wanted to get him on a big East Coast red on fly. Watching him fly fish was like watching art. He was a natural at it. It was effortless for him. Just as so many other things he did. The last time we were at The Mosquito Lagoon he caught a trout on a fly that he had tied himself. He was using a stripping basket I bought him for Christmas. We were there two days after on the twenty-seventh. We had learned a lot about the area and I was looking forward to going more with him. He was all smiles with the trout and had me take his picture since it was the first fish he caught with a fly he had created. I have the picture in the kitchen where I look at it every evening as I cook dinner. Memories aren't happy now, only sorrowful and cause pain.

The boat sat in the lawn all summer. In the same spot through all the summer rain. The tires were sinking into the ground and algae and dirt formed a skin over the hull, seats and motor. When Joel left, May fourteenth, it rained. It was the very first rain of the season. It rained about five hours and dropped five inches. It was a very hard rain with cold, large, raindrops. It got down into the sixties that night and I hoped he was at a friends house. But I presumed he wasn't because many of them came by looking for him. So I knew he was out there in the elements. I just hoped he had holed up somewhere to get out of it. My parents were insistent on coming over with pizza and a movie that night. I told them Joel wasn't here and Angie was at work. It was just me and Brandon. But they insisted. I told them "no" several times but still they insisted. I wish now I would have gone out to look for Joel as I wanted to. But I didn't want them to know something was wrong... they would have worried and fretted and gotten in the way of things. I wanted to get the pizza and movie out of the way and go out. But then the rain started and it didn't stop. I think it was nine-thirty and very dark when it did let up. My plan wasn't going to work so I went into another room where they couldn't hear and called a friend who is an officer for the FHP. He called ahead to the Sheriffs department, LPD, and to his fellow FHP officers to be on the lookout for Joel. Since Joel was eighteen, he really wasn't "missing" but my friend was able to call it a "wellness check" which pretty much means, "pick him up" and take him to the station.

The boat sat all summer, sinking into the lawn, and was unusable by the time I got around to the task. I had lost interest in nearly everything. I hated everything about my life. I had to give away Joel's parrot he so dearly loved because I was unable to care for it and it missed Joel so terribly. It wrenched at my heart to see him like that. He loved to play with Joel. After Joel had not shown up for several days he just slumped into the corner of the cage. He quit calling for Joel. Giving him away made me very sad as I felt like I was giving away the last part of Joel I had left. But I did gather some of the birds feathers he left behind and zipped them up in a Ziplock and put them in Joel's dresser drawer beside his diploma and the guest book from the funeral.

I worked on the boat for about a week. People stopped to talk from their vehicles as they drove by remarking that they hadn't seen us take the boat out for so long. I told a few of them what had happened but then just agreed with the rest that it's been a long time. I had to drain out all the gas. Water had gotten into the dry storage and everything in it was pretty much ruined. Joel would have hated that I let it get into such a mess. And I felt guilty and depressed. I worked through all the ruined lures and their rusted hooks. The pliers rusted shut. The soft plastics had leaked over everything including some lures Joel had given me for Christmas that I had not used. They were still in the box which was now soggy and stained with rust. A few of them I had no intentions of using. I wanted to keep them since they were gifts from Joel. I had forgotten they were in there. The ziplock bags also leaked and water, rust, and slime had gotten in them. I had Joel's certificate in there that showed he passed the Power Squadron course for safe boating. It was wet and stained and torn. I remember sitting with him in all his classes and helping him study for the test. The last fishing license I bought him was in there. It was dated December twenty-seventh, the day we went to the Mosquito Lagoon. He had to call the FWC eight-hundred number while we were idling out to the lagoon because his had expired.

I got the boat ready and the tail lights working and headed out to a place I knew Joel would have loved to have visited. I hadn't been there in over twenty years and at that time it was just in a canoe. I drove straight up Hwy 98 North to Homosassa. Once there, I was preoccupied with launching the boat and hadn't realized until I set my GPS that it was about 9:30, Friday morning. The time and day of Joel's death. I felt myself choke but then thought it oddly ironic. I hadn't thought about it at all that morning. I think this was the first Friday I hadn't. Many Fridays I hold an object Joel made and look at his picture quietly from 9:30 to 9:36 when he was pronounced dead. Other Fridays I just watch the clock. Some Thursdays and Friday mornings I watch the clock and wonder where he was and what he was thinking about on his journey.

I idled around exploring. I didn't catch many fish. But then again, my heart really wasn't in it. My trolling motor only worked in reverse. I noticed it felt tacky when I  put it on the boat. So then it made sense to me that I had not rinsed the salt off it from the last time I used it nearly six months before. I turned the trolling motor around backwards and ran it in reverse to make me move forward. It was a very pretty and calm day. I placed Joel's Urn and picture on the console, sat and looked at him and drifted. I'm not sure if I enjoyed the day or not. Well, I know I didn't enjoy it. I guess I'm not sure if there will be another day for me to enjoy. But I think I am glad I went or at least satisfied.