I have had some trouble sleeping.
I have been worrying about a lot of things, like the recent blood test showing a jump in my glucose levels. The 1099 tax form that arrived too late. The loud ticking sound when my car is idling. And the silent treatment from Marianne since our argument about new carpeting (which we really don’t need).
Sleep is important, and you’re supposed to talk to your doctor. Or a therapist. My friend Mike raves about Ambien.
But I can’t deal with any of that right now because my little sister, Nancy, and her husband, Jay, are coming for a short stay. One more thing to worry about, right?
I shouldn’t say that since they have stayed with us before and are good guests. The best, in fact, of all our Midwest friends and relatives who escape the “Hawk” and visit our winter home in Florida. They’re upbeat. Not complaining about the traffic. No political arguments.
We don’t have to entertain or even pay attention to them when they’re here. They come and go, sometimes vanishing all day. And when they return, they’re relaxed and grinning, as if they know a secret.
On their first evening here, Nancy picks up the guitar and Jay his drumsticks, twirling one of them in his left hand, and they first play something modern and then the older classic “Blue Bayou.”
My baby sister could have been a rock star. She even met Cat Stevens. Her life took a different direction, but she sure still can sing.
The second morning they’re here, we get the boat ready to go out on the Gulf of Mexico. The wind is calm enough to head offshore to the grouper grounds. But then I remember myself and ask Jay if they’re up to handling a long boat ride.
He has had multiple rounds of chemotherapy and infusion therapy for lymphoma and takes a slew of medications you can’t pronounce. Doctors say he is in remission, but there’s no guarantee, and he has to take for the rest of his life a drug that gives him painful headaches at night.
“Yeah, we’re good,” he says.
He means both of them, since not long after his diagnosis, Nancy was told she has a rare form of carcinoma, and she had to travel to the Mayo Clinic and then to Houston for a doctor who could treat her. She’s had her kidney removed and had painful radiation and chemo treatments but was cleared for this trip.
The Gulf is frisky with 2-foot seas, and I watch from the helm to where they sit up front, Nancy portside, Jay starboard, their faces into the wind.
But neither is seasick, and every few minutes, they glance at one another across the bow, smiles showing beneath their sunglasses.
I think back to my own first time offshore, so I know what they’re feeling, how the sea has become part of them, the ancient connection. Something pure coursing through their veins, for a change.
After an hour, I throttle down and shut off the engine. We rock gently, utterly alone on the Gulf.
Jay Anderson, David McGrath's brother-in-law, battles a red grouper 30 miles offshore west of Boca Grande, Florida, in 2023. (Nancy Anderson)
Jay hooks a heavy fish almost immediately. An experienced freshwater angler, he expertly raises the bent rod above his shoulders, then gains line by lowering it quickly as he cranks the reel. When the fish surges back to the bottom, reclaiming the line, Jay whistles at its tenacity and strength.
After we finally net, photograph and release his 10-pound red grouper, Nancy shouts for help on the portside. She, too, has hooked something and is waving her rod from side to side, as if the fish were leading her in a frantic dance.
She exclaims and wails with that singular voice, and Jay smiles and moves beside her to give counsel.
He tenderly helps his wife boat her own grouper, and when I ask my sister if she would repeat the battle along with her squeals and screams for my video camera, she shoots me a look of mock anger before throwing a kiss.
Not long after they return home, Nancy sends pictures from her phone: she and Jay posing with her fish. Another photo with both of them beaming, hanging on to the boat rail.
The photos arrive with her text: “I’ll tell you what, there isn’t a day that goes by when cancer isn’t on my mind. But sometimes, like when we’re on your boat, I forget all about it. Nothing else really matters except for that moment in time.”
I’m jolted with the realization of the ridiculousness of my worries and petty obsessions.
And with the life lesson from my little sister and her husband of what’s really important: loving and holding each other close, while cherishing every precious moment on this earth.
David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage and author of the newly released book “Far Enough Away,” a collection of Chicagoland stories. He can be reached at mcgrathd@dupage.edu.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
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