I first met with Death when I was 5 years old. My father took my brother and me fishing at a nearby lake. I suppose he had gone out and bought all sorts of equipment for the little adventure that never was repeated, and it was an adventure to him. We woke up before dawn and drove out to the lake that was clear and blue and reflected the forest around it cleaner than a mirror. Even to my young eyes, it was breathtaking.
    Shoving the rented boat into the water we let it drift till we found a good spot, far away from all the other fathers teaching their children how to bait a hook. I suppose that was my first lesson in Death—watching my father skewer the worm through the ugly steel hook. But life comes at the expense of other life, and I understood that, even at five years old. We baited our hooks, threw our lines out and waited.
    I don’t know how long we waited. I don’t know how many hours we spent in that tiny little boat, my brother, my father and I. Perhaps we talked about God. That was a favorite subject of my father’s. God. The ever-illusive being that adored us from afar. He couldn’t bear to go to church; Catholic scars from early childhood kept him from darkening a church door. We never learned about God in the traditional sense, we never learned how to pray or how to accept Death. I was only taught that I was loved by a benign Creator and He made me in His image and chose to give me a soul; a tiny piece of life that would make ever so much sense after I had died. And going to Heaven was like climbing a ladder into the clouds where you were safe and warm and nothing could hurt you. I imagined it was like being taken to bed in the middle of the night when you had fallen asleep on your parents’ bed. You might not know where you were, or what was happening, but the reassuring presence of your father as he lifted you into his arms and carried you was enough. When you were deposited in your small bed, you were safe and free and you just waited until the sun rose again. That’s what I imagined Heaven was. But Death, the process of getting to Heaven, was beyond me before that day at the lake.
    Eventually we caught two catfish. They each weighed about three pounds, but mine was heavier than my brother’s, a fact that delighted me to no end. We plucked the fish from their lake easily and my father removed the hook from their mouths and dropped them into a gray pail of water with such ease and grace. It didn’t feel like Death. It felt like living, it was one of the beloved father/children activities. I was too happy to worry over a catfish.
    As my father turned the small boat toward shore I stared into the pail, watching the sunlight reflect off of the shiny metal and stared at the fish as they swam in small circles around the perimeter of the pail, searching for more room, more space. They couldn’t have known what awaited them, what had changed, what was different. Yet, something in their hurried ways made me suspect that they were more intelligent than we gave them credit for.
    When we arrived at shore, my brother and I struggled with the bucket that held our catch as my father put away the tackle, placing each piece of bait and every small hook back into its specific resting place in the large maroon tackle box. Eagerly, we headed to the small stand where we could have our fish gutted and wrapped for a small fee. I led the way with our precious cargo, but my father stopped me.
    Reaching into the bucket he pulled our catch from their temporary haven and dropped them on the dusty ground. They flailed against the dirt in vain and the dust clung to their fins as they suffocated. Within moments, my father’s heavy boot slammed against them, killing them quickly, crushing the life out of them.
    I was horrified. I, in my innocence and youth, did not understand how he could be so cruel, how he could kill so easily and let Life shift into something that was so dark and ugly. I covered my eyes with my hands and wailed softly, for the first time feeling for our poor, captive fish. It wasn’t fair, and it was beyond my simple understanding. Heaven, I understood, but Death was new and frightening.
    My father came to me and pulled my hands away from my eyes, explaining to me what he had done. “It’s kinder this way,” he told me. “Maybe it looks mean and violent, but this is the right thing to do, to kill them quickly, to keep them from suffering. Look at the others.”
    I did as he commanded, looking at other happy fathers as they displayed their catch to their sons. The catfish, still hooked and dangling precariously from the fishing line struggled as they hung in midair. It looked different somehow, from the dance of Death our catch had performed on the ground. It was somehow beautiful, watching the fish dance through the air as the sunlight shattered against the silver gills. It looked beautiful.
    “That’s cruel,” my father explained. “Letting it suffer, letting it gasp for breath, making the death slow. That’s cruel, what I did was merciful.”
    I was only five years old and that seemed to go against what I had been taught to believe. The pretty way, the happy way, was mean and the ugly way, the way that involved actively killing by grinding a boot against a body, that was kind. I watched the other father laugh with his golden-haired children as the sun reflected off of their straw-colored hair and I wondered how they could be cruel through neglect, how they could think that the pretty way was better and how they could be so selfish that they couldn’t ugly for something else’s sake.
    My father seemed to understand so much then. He seemed wise. And I struggled with the concept of right and wrong and tried to understand that sometimes Right was ugly and Wrong was lovely and that Death had more secrets than I could imagine.
    It started to rain on the way home. We climbed into the big white Suburban with its streak of gray down the side, hauling our cleaned catch in pretty, white wrapping that now seemed so removed from the earlier acts of violence.
    Smelling of fish and grass and sun, we headed home as the clouds turned gray and menacing and rain broke through, spilling out over all of us. The rain fell and washed the Earth clean, it fell into the river that held the catfish and over the fathers who were still teaching their children to fish. It washed away the last traces of blood on the dock where my father had mercifully killed another creature and over the stand that cleaned our catch and let the oblivious pretend that Death had not touched them.
    We drove home through the rain and we when got to the house, my initial horror had faded or perhaps passed completely. My brother and I eagerly showed our mother our catch and I boasted with pride that my fish had been bigger; falling into a stereotype I hadn’t even known existed. She cooed over us with happy mothering sounds that fulfilled us and we left to wash up.
    That night she fried catfish for us as my brother and I shucked corn, pulling the stiff green leaves and the soft golden hair away from the bright yellow stalks that we would melt butter over and devour. The meal was fulfilling, and I ate trying to infuse my tired little body with new life and energy … at the expense of another life, but that was part of it, that was part of the circle, the pattern.
    I don’t remember if I thought of the catfish again that night as the storm blew over our tiny home. I do remember that I fell asleep listening to my father and my mother talk in the kitchen. Listening to my father talk was like listening to a summer storm. His laughter was the sharp, surprising crack of lightening followed closely by the pleasing rumbling thunder of conversation. His voice seeped through the partially open door that let the bright light of the hallway spill into my darkened room, and his voice fell around me like rain. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.