The River We Remember

by William Kent Krueger

What she believed was that goodness and badness came out of people because of how they were treated. And if you wanted goodness from others, that’s what you let come out of you. And the badness? Well, sometimes it slipped out, too, because no one was all one thing or another, but you forgave yourself when you were not who you wanted to be and you did the same with others. It was a pretty simple way of being, but it was one she could understand and believe in and follow.

Death is as ordinary in this world as birth or breathing. Though we may fear that journey and what awaits us there, it’s a revelation

OUR LIVES AND the lives of those we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end. Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different, and there are many versions of the stories we tell about the past. In all of them there is truth, and in all of them a good deal of innocent misremembering.

We all die, but some of us—those who are blessed or maybe just lucky—have the opportunity before that end to be redeemed. We can let go, forgive others, and also forgive ourselves for the worst of what we are or have been.