This guy would’ve been 68 years old today, and I can’t quite wrap my head around that… nor the fact that he died 19 years ago.

I’m still grateful to you, Clifford Ernest Polland, “my photographer,” for following me around on assignments, for loving me, marrying me, continuing to love me even during the years we lived apart—and remaining, from beginning to end, first and foremost, my friend and now companion spirit.

You often come to me in dreams where I find you knee high in a stream, rod in hand, whipping line and leader overhead in a graceful 10-2 arc, letting the fly land lightly on the water’s surface. And you turn and grin at me, standing on the shore, with a “Heya, Toots.”

And I awaken, knowing we’ve just had a visit, you on your side of the veil, me on mine.