#236 Ruins

A few evenings ago, I went to order food to go from our regular restaurant, the last one we visited together with Janne as a family. It’s a good Summer day so it’s busy. They always take my order as I’m a regular. As it will take a bit longer than usual, I decide to take a walk.

Just a couple of minutes away, there is a monastery in ruins. It used to be one of the largest in Northern Europe. It has been ruins for longer than 500 years now. I usually just walk by, but this day, I feel the need to go in. It’s just 2 euros in the self-service machine outside.

When Janne and I moved to Estonia in 2009, one of our first walks was on the promenade near where we live now. We ended up at this place too. I remember it well. The main building is big, but there are also a couple of tunnels to explore around.

This monastery was founded by the Bridgettines, an order founded by Bridget of Sweden in the 1300s. She was just a regular Swedish noble woman, but her husband died when she was 41. She founded this order after. I bet she never ceased to miss her husband.

When Janne and I were here, I was carrying just a film camera gifted to me by a close friend. There was no chance to review photos nor take a hundred of them like we do today with our phones. While we were in a tunnel downstairs, I just told Janne something so she’d turn and I could snap a photo. That picture came out Ok, but she had her eyes closed.

Those tunnels are empty now. It’s 500 years of ruins in this building and more than a year of ruins in my heart. Outside, there is a cemetery. Once we came during the winter and I remember making photos of all those crosses and thinking about how these people had lived. I guess I understand a bit more now.

Those tunnels will always remind me of Janne in her white pants and our continuous walks, of her deep voice and how much I loved just being with her, of a past and a future together. It’s just past now, but what a good one it was.