A Simple Float, A Lasting Memory

“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl 

It was late July of 2017 and my mother was dying of cancer. If you’ve never experienced how helpless it is to watch a loved one slowly slip away, then you’re blessed. I’m not sure how it is it suddenly lose one, but the slow death is visual agony that you cannot stop. 

The last part of June found us (the Hicks family) just getting back from a vacation to Branson and while we were there, I got a text from my mother that she’d been admitted to the hospital and not to worry. 

But I worried. 

The day we got back home, I made a flying trip to Monroe to see her in St Francis. She had been battling Ovarian cancer and her pain was being controlled by Dilaudid.  As we chatted in her hospital bed the nurse came in to tell her that the doctor wanted to switch to morphine. Deep down I knew that wasn’t a good thing. 

Hospice was called not long after that and the next few weeks were a blur of working, driving to see her, going home, and doing it all again the next day. Mentally I was exhausted, along with the rest of my family. 

That’s when friends do what friends do and one of my best friends, Joe Booth, decided we needed a little local trip. 

A float down the Bayou DeLoutre. 

Locally pronounced “The looter”, this bayou stretches from Eldorado Arkansas to the Ouachita river just south of Sterlington, La. Hands down, it’s one of the prettiest stretches of water anywhere in the world. My opinion is biased but it’s mine and that’s what I’m working from. 

Littered with old cypress trees, cool shaded spots, and the occasional bank that reminds me of places I’ve seen on more northern waterways, the loutre was home. Both the Hicks and Booth families were raised in these bottoms, as were a lot of families in our area. This would be just the mental break I’d need. 

We devised a plan to leave my truck bed empty at the Hwy 33 landing on the Marion highway and then take Joe’s truck and the boats to Nyegaard bridge in the Sweet Lily community. We’d unload there, float down to my truck, load the boats back up, and then take Joe and the boats back to his truck where we started.

Simple.  

Joe met me at the old launch on 33 at 7 am and then we drove to the bridge in Sweet Lily. We chatted about the morning and what we expected. We estimated that it would take around 3-4 hours to make to float. 

Turns out we were way off on that estimated time of arrival. 

As we slid my kayak and his pirogue into the muddy water, my mind relaxed. The smell of bayou mud overtook my senses and took me back to when I was a teenager slipping off to go fishing, while the rest of the world was working. I laughed as I remembered drifting off into those bottoms without telling a soul where I was going. By today’s standards, a kid would be beaten half to death for such unsafe behavior but back then it was common. That’s just what we did. 

I learned back then that when you wade off into these colder than normal waters, you’d better be wearing old tennis shoes and long pants. The submerged tree branches and logs will tear up any exposed skin if you’re not careful. And trust me, if you float the loutre in any area, you’re probably going to have to wade out into the unknown at some point. 

We fished, we laughed, and we paddled. Unfortunately for us we didn’t do enough of the latter early on and by hour 4, we were barely over halfway to our destination. 

That’s when the rains began. And partner it rained like my papa used to say “Knee deep to a giraffe”. We eased under some low canopy trees during the worst of it but it was no good. We still got soaked. Finally in desperation we went for broke and paddled like the natives were behind us. 

After almost a 6 hour float, we made it to a familiar stretch; Taylor Lake. We didn’t have much farther to go. Then we reached the old swimming hole. We were home free. 

Still raining, we loaded up the boats into my truck bed and climbed into the cab. There’s still a wet ring in both of my seats from this trip that reminds me regularly to bring extra towels when we go swimming.

The sun broke before we got to Joes truck, and it was steamy hot when we arrived. We hugged a man hug and parted ways. Exhausted but happy. 

Mother passed away three days later. 

July is always tough for me and Facebook memories serve as a double-edged sword. It’s good to remember but it’s also hard to forget. But along with her passing, July always brings back the memories of that float and my buddy who stepped up when I needed him the most.