July 10: Happy Birthday, Debby and Bruce!

Two days in the summer are especially hard for me to write about - one is June 30, the anniversary of my younger son's accidental death in 2012, and the other is July 10, the birthday of my sister and my brother-in-law. But it is also the day my sister died in 2010. So every July 10, I think about my sister even more than usual. I think about how I didn't realize how extremely important she was to me, until she wasn't there anymore. She was the one who would always be there. And I was the one who would always be there for her. I think she was probably aware that I didn't realize how important she was to me, but I also think she knew, which is probably more important. And my whole life, she just forgave me for being dense that way - probably in other ways too that I haven't yet noticed. That is one of the many things I miss and appreciate about her.

Here we are in 2006. Even though she just came up to cook for us, she saw we were in trouble with this huge roundhaul, and she came down to help. That was Debby. I also have photos of her coming to help when I bit off more than I could chew with a commercial salting effort. She was always there to help.

She loved to garden and this was a photo that Trina got that really felt like Debby - she was allergic to everything and used to refer to herself, mostly jokingly, as "a delicate flower."



In fishing news: The ranger was ready to come home today!! Ryan at Naknek Engine told us that he had to replace the tire because if he put another tube in it, the rough spot inside the tire would just make another hole. I just feel glad that it was possible to replace the tire. And today is the day we started processing our homepack. So both the boom truck and the Red Truck went into town after the afternoon tide - the boom truck to pick up the ranger and because it has been carrying the vacuum sealer, and the Red Truck so that once David puts the ranger onto the bed of the boom truck, he can take all the bluies and the gas cans and get us all filled up with water and gas, respectively, and then return to the beach to prepare for the night tide while the processing crew processes.

Rohan, Jeff, and I filleted the fish while AJ ran them to the freezer to try to pre-freeze them before sealing them. Several people mentioned that it seemed that a lot of bags broke last year and we are hypothesizing that it is because the slime interferes with the sealing process. So to get around the slime, we are trying to pre-freeze for maybe an hour, and then seal them. This calls for fillets to be draped around the inside of the freezer, with a runner bringing a few newly sealed in, and returning with a few partially frozen. We were able to fillet 20 fish in an hour. Sealing them takes just about as long.

After we got back to the cabins (something that always elicits a sigh of relief from me), the crew let me tell stories about Debby. A friend recently sent me a quote about the worthy goal of being able to live with pain and loss side by side with joy and energy. Here we all are.