The sun was shining this morning when I got the sad news about two skiers in South America cought by an avalanche. Further we found out it was Andreas Fransson and JP Aucklair. I went on my morning run with a heavy feeling inside, thinking about their family’s and close ones.
Andreas was in the same circuit as I, we are Sweden born, we love mountains and we have many friends in common. He moved to the Alps, he worked for Salomon, he lived his passion.
The last years when people in the acquaintances disappeared forever into the mountains it has always been sad, and hard and always many thoughts. With Andreas it´s the same, but it feels a little closer.
When I go to mountains I try to be as prepared as possible, I valuate, I´m inside my comfort zone, and I´m pretty sure it´s the same for all of us mountain people. Sometimes it´s just not enough, something we can´t predict, some things that just goes wrong.
Some things we just can´t help, something bigger than knowledge and safety thinking and planning. And that is so unfair.
I know I can´t change my love to mountains and my passion to go there, even though in dark moments I´m thinking, is this worth the slightest risk? Sometimes I wish my only passion were to have a farm and grow vegetables and go for some easy running in small mountains. Sometimes I wish to tell Kilian not to go to mountains and that we should find different passions from the mountain ones we have now. But yes, to live is not the same if we don´t follow our passions.
Death will always be in our background or close by and the relation to it must be one of the hardest to handle. My father who passed away when I was a newborn is my first memory of death. My father was with us, but no longer on earth.
I guess somehow that has affected my way of living. The appreciation of life and to see how fragile our lives are. To try to make every day a good day no matter what. To see the light in the dark and to follow the light as far as we can. To make the best out of what we got.
Despite the injustice it is at least a little comfort, or maybe not, but it´s a thought that makes it´s easier to live, to know that all that past away to early, at least did something they really loved.
