Kirk Williams was just two years old when his father joined the Coast Guard.
From that day to the time of Kirk's death on January 13, 2000, "fishing, the sea and the water were all Kirk lived for. He grew up on the Coast Guard jetty, any opportunity he got as a child, he was there fishing" says his father, Commander Jack Williams, who retired as head of the Coast Guard. "His fishing companions on the jetty were people like the late Jean Minshall and Basil Pitt."
"He never really liked to bathe in the sea, but would go along the beach picking up stones and collecting pieces" says his mother Linda. Jack and Linda are still recovering from the deep pain of the loss of their only child from a heart attack, just three short weeks after his thirty-eight birthday on December 22, 1999.
"It is painful" they both agree, but says Linda "after his first heart attack at age thirty in November 1992, I always said God lent him to me for those seven years, he was not really mine." It is this deep and abiding faith that has kept these two people strong in the face of their great loss.
"Our son lived his life fully, and even died as he would have wanted, on the sea, somewhere between the deck of the boat where he was found gasping for breath around four o'clock the afternoon, and being brought ashore."
Why would a thirty-year old have had a heart attack, I asked. Maybe it was hereditary, his father had his first heart attack at age thirty- nine and has since had quadruple by-pass surgery. Could it be Kirk's love of food. "He was no partygoer, didn't drink. but food you could get him anytime" said Linda.
Kirk may have been Jack and Linda's only child, but he grew up in the extended Blue Range family of the Walcotts, Ammons, Brash's, Goddards, Lennards and Seegobins "even the Bortolusso and Seepersad girls. They all got together and grew up as one on this street" says his parents.
Kirk played all the games, but would wander away to fish in the Blue Range River all by himself, during a game. "They would get vex with him. He brought home every little river fish and it is when you smelled something and checked, the fish were dead around the house." says his mother with a voice full of love.
He was nicknamed "Cannon" after the television detective whom he admired. "Many times" said Linda "I would ask youngsters at Fatima if they knew Kirk. They would shake their heads. Then I would ask for Cannon, they knew right away whom I was looking for."
When it was time for Kirk to leave College, his parents offered two options, a stint abroad to find out what he really wished to do, or to join the Coast Guard. Kirk's reply was "the only thing I know to do good is fish." He did not wish to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer or other academic.
"You are not giving yourself a chance, you don't know what there is to offer abroad" remonstrated Linda. Kirk was adamant "you are going to waste your money."
"That is not the profession I would have chosen for him" Jack admits "but I laid down two terms: whatever you do above all be honest and also be the best at it. I told his mother I not giving him two years. It never happened."
From age fourteen, Kirk could identify from the bite on his line what fish was taking his bait, and he was seldom wrong. By seventeen, he was earning his living by selling fish to the wholesalers, failing which to the neighbours. And whereas his mother says "I had to wake him to go to school, you did not have to wake him to fish. Two, three o'clock in the morning, somebody picking him up and he gone. Basically his life was like that."
But commercial fishing was seasonal, so Kirk travelled to every fishing competition in the Caribbean, the last of which he attended from May 31 to June 5, 1999, the 49th Ernest Hemingway International Bill Fishing Tournament in Cuba. "It was his ambition to go there, and he was proud of his autographed poster from Gregorio Fuentes, El Viejo El Mar, Hemingway's old man of the sea whom Kirk met."
He was a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Game Fish Association and the International Association as well, and is one of few fishermen to have caught a fish in these waters which had been tagged and released in New York a number of years before. "If a fish is too small, it is tagged and put back into the sea", explained Linda, who marvels at her son's ability to handle an 82-foot hatteras (a cabin cruiser), but yet refused to obtain a permit to drive a motor car.
Living testament of Kirk's love for fishing, is the room in which some thirty top-of-the line rods and reels, each easily costing U.S. $1,000, are stored, in pristine condition. Hundreds of bright coloured lures are lovingly and methodically laid out, no jumble, rust or fish smell about the late fisherman's equipment. The bags which are still neatly packed with equipment, were sewn by Kirk himself; "he knew exactly what he wanted, I bought him a sewing machine, and he made them" says Linda.
In his vast, up-to-date library of magazines and books relating to all aspects of fish and fishing throughout the world, Kirk has been credited in an international magazine for having created a new type of knot for securing hooks.
Fishing was Kirk Williams' life, he never got bored, and acted as consultant to many as to what equipment to buy, how to equip the boat, "all for love" says his parents. He was never afraid of the sea but had great respect for it and would tell his Mother when she chided him about having a closer relationship with God "no one can be in the sea and not be close to God."
At one time, Kirk spent two months in Venezuela overseeing completion of a boat for George Bovell, whose words of sympathy to his parents summed it all up: "As a fisherman and a companion Cannon was absolutely great, and his friends in the fishing community will miss his knowledge and advice given freely, greatly."
Kirk collapsed on the deck of the trawler "Men at Work", a boat he was managing for Vernon Montrichard. Ironically, his first heart attack at age thirty occurred on the same boat. They had sold their catch in Tobago and five miles off Scarborough had to take Kirk back to be hospitalised with chest pains. He always thanked the two women doctors, a young Pakistani and Dr Judith Henry for being alive. Kirk was lucky that first time. Back in Trinidad, tests revealed that one artery was blocked 100%, but as could happen in rare cases, two minor arteries took over and supplied the blocked areas with blood, no surgery was necessary.
Having worked for the whole day on January 13, personally readying the vessel for a fishing trip the next day, Kirk was last seen bathing on the deck of Men at Work. "He was preparing to go to fish on Friday" says Jack "and spent the whole day there, all the boys can tell you he was laughing with them, up and down with buckets instead of using the trolley. He had just asked one to wait to take him home after his shower, when another boat-owner wanted to use the dinghy which was tied alongside Kirk's boat. One of them went to ask him to use the dinghy to go ashore and found Kirk gasping for breath on the deck of the boat."
Kirk was still alive and even told them where his wallet was. He was brought ashore and the Coast Guard quickly went into action. However, Kirk was not as lucky this time around, and by the time Jack and Linda Williams got to the Seventh Day Adventist Community Hospital in Cocorite, shortly after 4.30 p.m, their only child had passed away.
May Kirk, who now abides with the greatest fisherman of them all, rest in eternal peace.