Dream Fulfilled

Great Grandfather takes Great Grandson fishing. And the old man’s dream comes true.
Its almost Christmas 2001, our First (of five) grand-daughter Emily was going to give birth to our first great grand child, which would make our son Harold a grandfather. And since we had spent the last six Christmas in Florida we decided to fly home for the holiday and get to see the first Great Grand child. We were to get into South Bend airport in early afternoon on the 23 of
December. The great Grand child beat us there. We knew we had a boy but hadn’t been told his name.
Harold was at the airport to take us to see the new boy. It had snowed several inch’s of new snow and the plows had not cleared the parking lot yet. After getting in the van and still not finding out what they had named the boy we started out and hit a cement parking block.
So here we were freezing and helping change the tire, we finally head to Emily and Craig Sherwood’s.
We walked in and they put the boy in my arm’s and I said alright what’s your name, they told me his name was Jackson Dean and I was filled with so much joy and tears to think they had given him the same middle name as mine, (JD for short).
From that day forward I had prayed I would live to take JD fishing. Two weeks ago on a Saturday morning we picked him up for the day. How he has grown up this past winter, I remember when we arrived at the airport he was there to meet us and he helped me take one of my suit cases to the car. Back to fishing, we got the worms and poles and went to Mike and Brenda’s to fish off the sea wall. J D got baited up and cast his line out into the water. It hardly got there and JD had a fish on, Brenda was taking pictures, he caught 5 and lost one when the line broke. It got hot so we decided we had enough fishing for the day.
Mike took JD and the fish to the fish cleaning house and showed JD how to clean the scales off with a spoon, then Mike fillet them, explaining each step and told J D they were dead so it wasn’t hurting them.
So we took the fish home for lunch and Great Grandma Bernadine cooked the fish for us.
J D took a small fillet and ate, it then he had another on his fork when he looked at me saying, “they are dead aren’t they?”
That night when he went to bed his mother was telling him good night, but he wanted to talk, He said next time when I go fishing out at Mike’s I’m going to bring them home in a bucket and I’ll take the seals off with a spoon and you can cut them up. I’ll bury the heads and we can take the bucket back to Mike, then you can cook them for us. His mother told him she didn’t know how to cook fish. He said “well take a pencil and paper and We will go to Great Grand ma’s house and she will tell you how to cook them.”
What a boy and God is so good to have let met take him fishing and see him catch his very first fish.
Thank you God.
Great Grandpa Dean.