Drowning reminds me of a horrible summer day in 1997

As you go through your professional life, there invariably come days when you look back at your career and say, "that day changed me."

While I listened to the police scanner in the newsroom late Tuesday, as dispatchers called for dive teams and deputies scrambled to search the Blue Earth River for the body of 21-year-old Jenny Mae Kraling, my thoughts drifted back to Cathy Anderson.

I was still a fairly green reporter back in 1997. I was assigned to the cops beat, which meant it was my job to be at the scene of any crime, fire or tragedy in our coverage area. And in June of 1997, my job took me to the banks of the Minnesota River. Where the Blue Earth River flows into the Minnesota, a group of boys were swimming and tried to cross it. Two made it. One did not. Daniel Anderson's body was under the dark waters of the Minnesota River for several days before they finally found him.

Journalism can be an odd thing. It's comparable to politics and the sausage analogy: watching how it's made isn't always the most most appetizing notion. I remember photographer John Cross and I hanging around the river at Sibley Park as police officers floated around in flat-bottomed boats dragging the river for a body. Other officers patrolled the banks, making sure gawkers didn't get too close. Crowds gathered. Media arrived. (KARE-11 sent Ken Speake down in a helicopter, and I remember his behavior that day giving me a new impression of the great storyteller.)

But that day I really felt like a vulture. And even though I hated -- loathed -- the idea of having to talk to a family going through this, I figured my editor wouldn't be satisfied if I came back to the newsroom without having at least tried to the family. It's just what we do, right? Newspapers, TV news crews, radio jocks ... We go to the scene of tragedy and ask the questions you would ask if you could. It's not easy. But our readers expect us to at least try.

And, truth be told, you'd be surprised how many people are very willing to talk, or are very polite about saying "no." In my 16 years of doing this job, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've been shouted at by a grieving family. It sounds like a cliche, but in situations of horrible loss, families understand there will be news coverage, and they seem to look forward to the chance at taking a horrible moment and making it a little less horrible by telling the world how wonderful their loved one was.

But back to the point of all this ...

It was around June 23 when Cathy Anderson's son, Daniel, drowned. And there she was, pacing the banks of the river. It didn't take me long to figure out who she was. But it took me over an hour to work up the courage to walk up to her. At that time, I didn't know that most people were generally OK with at least the initial contact from us. No, I still thought I was the worst person in the world for even considering walking up to her. She'd lost her son, and was waiting for the authorities to recover his body. The last thing she needed was some punk reporter coming up to her asking "how she felt" about it all.

Still, that's exactly what I did.

And the way Cathy Anderson treated me that day became one of the touchstone moments of my journalism career.

I don't know how she remembers it, but here's how I remember it. Like her, I paced back and forth for a long time, rehearsing what I'd say, hands shaking, palms sweaty, nervous as hell, trying to convince myself that this was the right thing to do.

Finally, I just bit the bullet and did it. And she was so nice. As I'm thinking about this now, I think there is no possible way that she didn't sense my apprehension. I don't remember what questions I asked her, but I remember my hand shaking so much that it was difficult to write. In fact, my bet is that if I were able to magically make that notebook appear, the notes from that interview would probably be completely illegible. She told me about her son. She cried. She spoke honestly. And she never once made me feel like the intruder I felt like I was. She carried herself with uncommon grace, and an understanding about the purpose of my presence that blew me away. Every moment I spent with her I spent on the verge of tears. She'd lost so much. How can anything I write ever possibly come even remotely close to describing the despair in her heart? It seemed insulting to even try.

But I had to.

The story I got out of that interview was pretty good. That wasn't, however, what was important about that day. Much more important were the stories that would come later, stories that were made better because she let me inside the front door of her pain. I learned how to navigate sorrow. I learned a little bit about how using your heart, contrary to what they teach you in journalism school, is the best way to get at the heart of a story. Tragedies have a way of touching off events that are impossible to predict.

So anyway, as the community again mourns the loss of young life in one of our beloved rivers, I'll mourn too. And I'll also be thinking of Cathy Anderson and her son.