EULOGY by Janet L Oakley

EULOGY by Janet L Oakley

When I think of Rolf I think of rivers:

Long rivers, skinny rivers,

Rivers with boulders and pebbly beaches,

Rivers flowing swift at high water,

Rivers slow but clear as glass showing where the Dolly Varden hide.

Rivers of salmon and steelhead going to the sea.

Before I met Rolf the only rivers I knew were the Allegheny and

Monongahela, the Ohio and Shenandoah,

Sluggish rivers, brown and old.

Rolf showed me wild rivers

With eagles and ancient spruce bottoms, king fishers and heron

And elk dipping their heads into the water.

Stillaguamish, Nooksack, Lyre and Hoh,

Skagit, Samish, Queets and Sauk

Rivers of legend, rivers of dreams.

May he always be there along them casting, casting until I come to him.

Janet’s beloved “Ruff” with a steelhead he caught in 1978 or so. October 26th would have been Janet and Rolph’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Award-winning author, J.L. Oakley, writes historical fiction that spans the mid-19th century to WW II with characters standing up for something in their own time and place. She also writes the occasional personal essay. Dry Wall in the Time of Grief won the 2016 grand prize at Surrey Writers.Recent awards have been the 2020 Hemingway Grand Prize award for 20th century war time fiction and an Honorable Mention Writer Digest Self-pubbed Ebooks for The Quisling Factor.