#117 I am haunted by waters

Thoughts these two nights are not necessarily related to Janne, but that’s how grief has opened my eyes a bit more. By chance, I read a quote from a movie and a novella that has always touched me, “A River Runs Through It”.

I went to university in Montana. It has been the most beautiful place where I lived. I could just look out at the Bridger Mountains from my window. Janne and I talked about taking a big trip through the US. Bozeman would certainly have been a mandatory stop. However, we decided between that trip and remodelling our house. We took the right choice as the trip would have happened in 2020.

A connection with Janne is when we watched the movie, I would always jump at a scene filmed at my university to tell her, “I used to take my naps there!”

A River Runs Through It, written by Normal Maclean, tells the story of his family in the early 1900s. This tale represents many things. It is about duty as the Scottish father teaches his sons. This is a love poem to the beauty of fly fishing. It is a postcard picture of Montana. It shows the love between two brothers even if they are so different. It’s about finding your true calling.

When re-reading that quote, I realized that this is also a story about grief. Maclean wrote it when he was the only surviving member of his family. In a conversation with his father, he asked him to make up a story and “the people to go with it”. His father follows with, “only then you will understand what happened and why. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us”. Maclean just says that all those he loved and did not understand are dead, but he still reaches out to them.

This is where this connects with Janne. I still reach out to her moment by moment. I did not fully understand her as she was so cryptic, but I certainly loved her. Would a novella about us be next?

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.