#103 Omens

When Janne and I were getting married, a group of friends in Dublin organized a stag party for me. One of the events was in a karting track. It was raining torrentially. When we arrived to the track, we found out that it was underwater. One of the friends turned to me and told me, “I hope you don’t believe in bad omens”. I didn’t. Fortunately, it wasn’t an omen about getting married because Janne and I did more than fine together.

At the end of August of 2010, we visited the south of Estonia. I had heard about it and wanted to see it. Estonia is a pretty flat country. Their highest peak is in the South at 318 meters (1,043 feet). You probably have heard of the Netherlands, but Estonia wins.

The South has rolling hills that I fell in love with. I dreamt once of having a place there for Janne and I. We visited the highest point climbing up the tower at the top. I made some photos with a funky film camera I was carrying. When coming down, we stopped by the gift shop. We saw wooden letters attached to keychains. We got a K and a J for our keys. My K got lost a few years ago, but the J continued going strong.

In July 2022, we were waiting for Janne’s results. One day she was standing in the kitchen. All of the sudden a big pigeon crashed on the kitchen window, bounced to a wall in the house and dropped dead. She called me scared. I had to go pick up the bird to get rid of it, and had to wash the wall from the blood splashed all over. It was pretty gory.

The night before we went to that amusement park with the boys, I had late work calls. It was a warm night so I was working in our terrace at the back of the house. I had gone to run an errand before and had used Janne’s keys. I had them in my pocket so was rubbing the wooden J as if it was a magical token and as I always would do.

And that J just broke in my hand.

Next day, while in the amusement park, Janne got the call to let her know of her cancer. I didn’t want to put the J back together. I still kept the broken piece and I have it in a special place together with our wedding rings.

And I cannot shake the feeling that this wooden J is me.