Ill stay with you

Hemingway said to the fish he would stay with it until he is dead... in my opinion he's meaning to say that he has nothing else but writing in his life and sticking with just that until he commits suicide.

I was thinking the same thing in general. Like on page 60 when Hemingway wrote "But he stays down forever. Then I will stay down forever with him." I think he was saying that if he couldn't "reel in this big fish" or execute this idea was thinking of, then he would just die along with the idea without anyone knowing it existed.