NEWS & STORIES
A Helping Hand
Story by David Winkler
Holy Waters seeks to bring care and community to life’s stream through the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing program. Our Midwest programs are healing disabled veterans year-round by opening doorways to the catharsis of community, camaraderie and nature. We believe that helping disabled veterans is not a one-time event. It is about being their coach, mentor, friend and companion on a journey of healing. Holy Waters will bring this continuum of care to our Nation’s disabled veterans through a series of powerful online events, interactive story-telling opportunities and restorative healing gatherings in the Midwest and online.
As part of the Minneapolis Program, one of the favorite tying events that we do once a quarter is go to the Veterans Day Care Center which is part of the Recreational Therapy department at the Minneapolis VA.
The Day Care Center is for veterans with special needs like stroke victims, patients with memory deficiencies and handicap outpatients in wheelchairs. It cares for patients whose caregivers are family members and it gives them a little respite from their duties as constant caregivers so they can do some shopping or take care of family matters and gives them some time to themselves and they get that much needed break so they can recover and take care of themselves.
It’s one of the favorite places for the volunteers to participate in tying activities. I’m not exactly sure why we love going there so much but I suspect that it gives us a sense of satisfaction seeing the veterans have some fun doing something they’ve never done before and they’re just happy the entire time. The expectations are just that; have some fun for a couple of hours and share some conversation with someone new.
I remember on one occasion when as a volunteer, I got to work with a veteran who’d had a stroke and didn’t have use of his right arm. This was a new experience for me. I’d tied flies with many veterans with a variety of disabilities but never one with use of only one hand.
The fly we chose was the foam frog. A simple fly that shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to tie.
Having the use of both hands is something I think we all take for granted. I know I do. As we sat down with the vice and tools in front of us it was clear that neither one of us knew how we were going to tackle the job.
We looked at each other for a bit and I finally said, “It takes two hands to tie this fly so I’ll be the right hand, you be the left.”
No problem, right? It sounds easy in principle EXCEPT when I was coaching him to move his left hand, he was trying to get my right hand to move where he wanted. After a couple of tense moments he finally said, “This would be a lot easier if you’d move your right hand the way I’m thinking it should move. Can’t you figure that out?” He did his best to look like he was serious before he broke into laughter.
We spent the next hour going forward and back in the process and laughing the entire time. We told stories and made tongue in cheek disparaging remarks about each other’s branch of service. I would have liked to been a spectator to that little session as I can imagine seeing both of us concentrating hard on wrapping the thread, tying in chenille, pinching the foam, wrapping thread, unwrapping and wrapping again. We must have tied and retied that same fly half a dozen times and had we not been laughing so hard and talking, we just may have been able to finish more than the one we started with.
There were a couple of times we had to break so he could wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.
I don’t remember his name and I’m certain he doesn’t remember mine but I’ll never forget that experience. He left with that one single foam frog in a pill container and I’ll bet that when he looks at it, he’ll remember that day.
For that hour, he had fun. Perhaps he forgot about his stroke and not being able to use his hand. Maybe he felt whole again. I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter. He left with a smile and what I hope is a great memory.
Whether we’re tying, fishing, helping someone with casting or any of the other activities we do with PHWFF; whether we’re PLs, APLs, or one of the thousands of volunteers who show up at the sessions, our rewards are always great but when someone succeeds at something they never thought they could and we see them have fun, they become immeasurable.
Story by David Winkler
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