The envelope contained three items: a Christmas card, an old cloth bag and a matchbox.

The cloth bag was something I’d forgotten on a recent fishing trip. The Christmas card made sense­—it was Christmas. But the matchbox—that was the odd thing.

On the outside of the card, a cowboy carefully trimmed a fake Christmas tree. Even before I opened the card, the image perfectly encapsulated Blaine, his generation and his aesthetic. It even kind of looked like him. On the inside, Blaine had written, “This card reminded me of clipping deer hair (ugh!)”

A smile crept across my face as I slid the matchbox open—it contained four hand-tied deer-hair dragonfly nymphs.

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