Tag Archives: family

Now I Know It Was Love at First Sight. I Had It, and I Lost It.

Leave a comment

The feeling of love comes to the chosen lucky ones and gives them an almost painful sensation of being alive.

Rough creatures cannot be fit for this emotion. Rejoice at being exquisite, gentle and beautiful. Do you want to know more about it? Let me postpone the explanation for a few delicious moments. Dive deep with me into the freshness of this feeling by reading this short story.

It was still drizzling outside.  I had nowhere to hurry. I was young and upset. The strange night charmed me, and I was no longer angry at myself for a stupid mistake of missing the train.

I saw a covered bench and noticed the silhouette of the person sitting there. I soon saw it was a boy. Despite the canopy above the bench, his umbrella was open, and it was difficult to see his face. I went to that bench, looked at the boy and asked, “Goodnight. Can I also take refuge? I don’t have an umbrella, and it seems my clothes are starting to get wet.”

The boy raised the umbrella. He had beautiful eyes, made of kindness and silver. His curly hair was wet with rain.

Saying nothing, he moved slightly to the side, making room. I sat down nearby without looking at him. After a moment he told me in a soft, gentle voice, “Do you love rain?”

I felt a mixed sense of surprise and confusion. I did not know what to say to the boy. But it seemed that the answer was not important to him, because after a brief pause he added, “I love it!”

I said, “It’s quite noticeable, that you love rain. You are sitting with an open umbrella, but your hair is wet. This means you’ve been walking with a closed umbrella.” I noticed from the side how a smile appeared on the boy’s face. But he didn’t look at me, “How smart you are! Like a famous detective!”

“I had a terrible day. But rain makes me forget everything. Under the rain, you can hide your sadness. Rain is my weakness. I will get totally wet, but I will continue to stand and enjoy every drop that is falling.”

Ihad been looking at the boy for a long time, being unable to take my eyes off him. He interrupted the pause, “You’re silent.” I shuddered as if waking up after hypnosis, “No… Sorry? I got distracted. I do not know. The rain brings slush and I don’t like it. But judging by your words, it’s as if you were born in the rain.”

The boy voiced his thoughts, “If it hasn’t started raining, I would not have appeared here, and you would sit here alone.” I picked up the topic and expanded it, “Yes… If I didn’t go to my friend’s party at the other end of the city, I would not be late for my train. I would not have come here and would not have met you.”

“Do you regret it?”

I looked at him again, looked away, and lowered my head.

“I don’t regret I met you. You are a good companion.”

Ilooked at the boy, admired the beauty of his hair, his nose, and then interrupted the song of the rain again, “We’ve been sitting here for some time now, and you did not even look in my direction.”

“Why look? Sometimes it is enough that someone is near.” The boy stopped smiling. He closed his umbrella and was about to get up. I asked anxiously, “Are you leaving? Has something happened? Have I offended you?” The boy straightened his coat and tightened the belt. He was holding an umbrella in his right hand.

“No, everything is okay. I just have to go home. It’s too late. And you have to go home too.” I did not want to let him go.

The stranger got up from his place. He touched the ground with the tip of his umbrella and knocked on the asphalt and moved along the sidewalk in slight steps.

I realized that he was blind.

Struggles of a Marriage With a Special Needs Child

Leave a comment

Witness a life of toil and unpretentious beauty

Mycousin Sveta and her husband Kostya loved each other very much. The history of their relationship was simple and unpretentious. They met at the birthday of a common acquaintance and immediately felt a mutual attraction and got married almost right away.

When Sveta discovered that she was pregnant, there seemed to be no happier people in the world than that married couple. The young woman humbly tolerated all her morning sickness and Kostya made repairs in the room, which was to become the kid’s bedroom.

Sveta remembered each minute of the Sunday, when she felt labor pains. Kostya took her to the hospital. The nurse showed Sveta her baby only for a moment and moved the newborn to the table a little further to carry out the necessary manipulations. Euphoria from the joyful event filled the woman, and she was ready to sing with happiness, without recalling the pain.

When the nurse told her, while she was still lying on the delivery bed, that they transferred the baby to the intensive care unit, Sveta’s joy and strength alike deserted her. Her voice broke when she asked, “What’s wrong with him?” The nurse only promised that the doctor will come the following morning to tell her everything she needed to know.

In the morning, Sveta was listening to the doctor, not understanding half of his words. From the unbroken stream of terms and names of pathologies, only ‘cerebral palsy’ sounded familiar.

When Kostya came with flowers, he found Sveta crying in the hospital hall. Pressing herself against his broad chest, she was sobbing uncontrollably. She recounted the conversation with the doctor, but Kostya, not wanting to believe in the nightmare’s reality, went to the doctor’s office himself. He listened for a while as if in a doze, then squeezed his wife’s arm encouragingly and they left.

The apartment sparkled, but the joy was gone, giving way to anxiety. The baby, whom they named Denis, did not sleep at night, forcing his parents to rock him. He was crying constantly, bending his back, and nothing could help to calm him down. The visiting nurse showed Sveta the basics of massage. The pediatrician prescribed some drops, but relief did not come.

Sveta’s life turned into running with the baby through hospital corridors, visiting doctors’ offices, the swimming pool, churches and even folk healers. Kostya, who almost had no time to sleep, was trying his best to earn more money. The spouses quarreled often. There were a lot of reasons, but there was only one explanation — eternally screaming Denis.

Once the quarrel over a cup which Kostya did not wash turned into a scandal. With emotion, he threw the unfortunate piece of tableware on the floor and fired off, “You’re at home all day, and I’m struggling to pay for all these classes, which are of no use. And… it’s your fault. The guys told me that the woman is fully responsible for the health of the newborn. Was it difficult to be careful during pregnancy?”

Sveta was standing and watching the small shards scatter around the kitchen floor. But what she actually saw was her family breaking apart. The anger distorted the face of the man, whom she used to adore. Everything blurred before her eyes. A dangerous silence followed. Sveta fainted, and this state of unconsciousness saved her from thinking about her husband’s betrayal.

She woke up in the hospital bed, and asked the nurse, who was preparing the syringe, “Where is my son?” An elderly woman answered, piercing Sveta’s vein, “Both your son and your husband are in the corridor. They have been here all night. You scared your husband a lot. Should I call them in?” Sveta nodded. She told Kostya about her decision to divorce.

Three years passed. The child grew, but was lagging in development, despite all their efforts. Denis could not walk, eat and drink on his own. It was impossible to put him in kindergarten. Sveta did not dare to hire a nanny — this service was so expensive that it was pointless for Sveta to work. She studied medical articles and could communicate with any of medical luminaries in one language, but nowhere could she find the answer on how to help her son.

Once Sveta and her boy were going home on the bus from the market. She felt that the surrounding people were looking at them with pity. Sveta wiped the drool which was flowing from her son’s half-open mouth. She plunged into her bitter thoughts and did not notice that she passed her stop, and the bus was almost empty. Like in a terrible dream, she got up and left the bus with a heavy heart and blurry vision. Denis was looking out of the bus window at his slowly retreating mother.

The woman was walking along the streets with heavy bags for a long time. Sveta cried bitterly but stubbornly walked home without looking back. Her steps softened as her heartbeat grew unbearably louder, pressing at her ribs, making her choke with every gasp for air.

When she closed the door behind her, Sveta sat down on the floor and sobbed aloud in a fit of desperation. A few minutes later Sveta jumped up and ran to the street from the house. She noticed nothing around. She ran to the last bus stop and checked every salon. But her child was not there. She wanted to ask the drivers, but her voice refused to obey her. Sveta tried to catch her breath and cope with the pain that was spreading from her belly all over her body.

An elderly driver understood everything from somehow said inconsistent words “my child, my baby”. “Don’t worry, he’s all right. He is in the control room. Let’s go.” Sveta ran the distance to the control room in a moment. Without greeting, she ran to her son. He was sitting on a chair, holding an apple in his hand.

A woman dispatcher with thickly painted eyelashes, examined the early gray hair, dark circles under Sveta’s eyes and said, “Our driver Stepanych brought your child and I gave him an apple. He didn’t cry.” Sveta grabbed her son and whispered some inaudible words of gratitude. The dispatcher touched her shoulder, “One of our guys will drive you straight to your house.”

Every time Sveta hugged her child and felt the throbbing of his heart against her chest, she called to mind the moment of weakness on that bus. The canker worm of remorse secretly gnawed at her, and she expressed more patience and made more efforts in the boy’s treatment.

When 14 candles were burning on the birthday cake, Sveta was feeding her son every piece of the treat with a spoon herself. Denis walked with difficulty and mooed instead of speaking articulately.

Being the only guests at this birthday party, my family was witnessing a life of toil and unpretentious beauty. My two-year-old son was wandering through the luxurious dark curls on Denis’ head, and both boys laughed with pure and innocent joy.

My First Encounter With Death and How My Mom Explained It To Me

Leave a comment

Life is equally charged with love and destruction, with growth and death.

My mother and I approach the house in silence. Her sharp movements, the way she opens the door loudly ringing her keys, her strained back — this all promises an unpleasant conversation.

I took off my shoes slowly. She sat in the armchair and looked straight at me.

“Well? Explain this to me.”

“Ivan and I just—”

“Ivan. Again this Ivan.” She sighed. “Every time I hear his name, I wonder what he’s made you do now. How many times have I told you not to follow him?”

“Mom, we only wanted to free the pigeons from the school attic.”

“And if you’d fallen? I know it was his idea.”

“No. Ivan is good. He always helps people.”

“The teacher says there are no pigeons.”

“There are.”

“Enough. From now on, you’re not to see him.”

The next morning I found Ivan before class.

“My mother forbade me to talk to you.”

“My mother was angry too,” he said quietly. “They don’t understand. I just wanted to help.”

“I know.”

Later that day a doctor arrived at school for routine examinations.

“I don’t want to go,” Ivan whispered. “I’m fine. Maybe we should check on the pigeons instead.”

“No,” I laughed. “My mother really will kill me.”

We followed everyone else.

That evening my mother asked why I was late.

“Ivan and I visited Kostya.”

“Kostya?”

“The homeless man. I gave him my lunch. Ivan gave him some change.”

She frowned.

“You and Ivan invent people now?”

She looked at me for a long moment before unexpectedly saying,

“Go next door. Spend time with Ivan if you want.”

I stared at her in surprise.

A few days later she sat beside me at dinner.

“Olya… I don’t know how to tell you.”

She struggled to continue.

“Ivan is very sick.”

Everything inside me froze.

Snow began to fall.

I stopped eating.

I stopped speaking.

The school called.

“The psychologist can help,” my teacher suggested.

“We’ll manage,” my mother answered quietly.

When I finally returned to school, I fainted on the way home.

A stranger carried me into our house.

“She has a fever,” he said.

After helping my mother lay me in bed, he turned to leave.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Kostya.”

The door closed.

My mother stood motionless.

“Kostya…”

She put on her coat and hurried to school.

She climbed to the attic.

There, tangled in an old rope net beside the broken window, was a frightened pigeon.

She freed its wings carefully.

Then she kissed its head and released it into the winter sky.

Some lessons arrive too late.

Adults often judge a friendship before trying to understand it.

Children see goodness where experience teaches adults to expect trouble.

When a child loses a friend, he loses part of his own world. What he needs most is not explanations, but love, patience, and someone willing to grieve beside him.

Happy memories become the only part of a friendship that death cannot take away.

After Baby Stretch Marks Make the Most Beautiful Tattoo

Leave a comment

Crossing into this world through your body is a miracle

How great a privilege is yours to carry this proof of giving birth.

I am determined to be naughty, to tease you, and put in a passion, so you don’t give a second to fruitless lamentations about lost smoothness and vanished firmness. Your looks, as they are, are precious. Forget all negative expressions, voicing none. You should not regret the aftereffects, which helped you become a Mother.

I was not in the least put out by these comments

These exclamations burst from strangers often, “It is huge. You’re having twins, aren’t you?” “Put me wise. Your due date is quite soon, isn’t it?”

This is my favorite, “Looks like you are going to have a bi..i..ig girl? I know it by the shape of your belly.”

“All other people seem quite dwarfish to me nowadays,” I used to say, smiling with every tooth in my head.

Although these noises were accompanying me everywhere, they could not prevent a thousand lights to play about my face. I accepted them with charming grace.

I don’t mind admitting that when I was pregnant, I felt as if I was born to have this experience. I went about with a sense of champagne in my head. Every day was mine, forever mine. The cheerful, happy smile was made for my lips.

I was the song of life and life was dancing inside my womb. My entire being shone with the glory of having created, with a sort of ecstasy which redeemed all silly comments.

One day during lunch my coworker smiled deprecatingly and whispered, “I have half a mind to have a baby. Hm… Can I ask you something?”

“Say away.”

“Now seeing you, how is it to carry such weight every day?”

How about a compliment, “You are so darned pretty with this enormous belly of yours.”

This one came from a close friend, “I’d just love to give you a hand with this baby you carry. He will get out three-year-old right away.”

It was intended to be funny, “It just tickles me to death. How are you going to get back in shape?”

I used to respond, “That remains to be seen.”

I was so skinny all my life. People saw the still slender frame, when they looked at me from the back, and couldn’t guess I was pregnant. So when they saw my lovely, rather big bump in front, they were in quite a shock.

And I felt refreshed, delighted, and invigorated. I walked, feeling as if I had wings to my feet, experiencing a sense of exhilaration. I was selfishly, shamelessly happy.

I am lost in self-love and half-delirious self-admiration

Although I used expensive lotion and reasonable moisturizer, I could see neither rhyme nor reason in it after reading scientific articles about the genes and inevitability of stretch marks if those were destined for me. I saw fit to take extra care of my honorable baby bump. It deserved the daily rubs and caresses.

I didn’t think about how I was going to fix up the ruined tummy business. I didn’t care two straws about the way it was going to look like, as long as my baby was happy there and healthy when outside.

I’m well rewarded for my pains and pleasures

The discovery of my beautiful belly being all covered with drawings of rivers, streams, cascades, tides, and torrents didn’t make my eyes gush out with water of self-pity, rather made me proud. Big happiness swelled me from inside, and every stretch mark strengthened my love for my body.

There is a stamp of heavenly poetry about my tummy, no doubt I will die without ever having known even a passing feeling of embarrassed timidity. I look at my body with an air of conscious triumph. My fortune is enormous, it has no bounds — I am a Mother.

Your body is well worth the honor of looking at and admiring.

Crossing into this world through your body is a miracle.

Say only positive about a body that felt the dancing of life from inside.

The Art of Promising Nothing and Getting No One Upset

Leave a comment

I know in my heart that ‘I cannot promise’ and ‘No’ is worth saying

Photo from the author

Spiritual topsy-turvydome is released when you pull its ugly nose and rejoice at the universal lack of activity.

Of late, I witnessed an urgent need to educate myself in all the riff-raffs of the art of promising nothing.

We were married for only a year, and we were comic in a tragedy of our incongruities. I was all the unconscious and elementary promising and planning. He was an utter superiority in relaxation, passionate leisure, and relief.

My husband needed to get clear of the whole poisonous atmosphere of ‘must-s’ and ‘have to-s’. He wanted to say “I don’t know” to any question involving the exact timing of any activity.

“Your talk is a torrent of nonsense, love, you and I can change our minds whenever and whatever reason might be or with no reason,” I could trace curious hilarity in his voice.

“But, hun, we planned this vacation with my sister’s family for three months now. It will upset them no end if we decide not to go.”

We both dreaded the occasion because by that time we realized that we would hate my sibling and her husband if we spent together over three days, not talking about a fortnight.

My husband offered to have a wonderful two-week retreat instead.

The vacation was fantastic.

My sister couldn’t toss away her wounded pride. She didn’t talk to me for almost six weeks.

I said to my coworker I loved kids, and she asked me with so much feeling in her eyes to watch her two-year-old a couple of evenings a month.

A mischievous two-year-old boy changed this rosy picture.

I was forced without pussyfooting around to say,

“I cannot devote another hour of my life to this laborious task of taking care of your sweet boy. He pulled my hair, broke every smashable thing in my house, and stealing my pen, left his immortal art on my walls.”

The truth is, I should have told her right away that I love kids in general and seldom get well with a particular child one on one.

“You see, I didn’t notice at the time of my comfort or discomfort.”

“I said I will take care of it while she is away with her boyfriend.”

He almost roared,

“It is much worse than that. You didn’t notice MY comfort. I have an allergy. Do you want me to swallow pills now for an entire week? Why didn’t you even think to call me and ask first?”

I responded,

“She was so insistent and agitated. I felt somewhat confused. I will call her right away and tell her I couldn’t be of help.”

My friend was rightfully drowning her disappointment in complete indifference.

We lost intimacy in our conversations and only much later regained it fully back.

On another occasion, I had a horrid headache but had a line on my schedule that I couldn’t crisscross.

My girlfriend had a baby shower that evening and I was an honored guest.

I swallowed a painkiller and went, but had to go away in the middle of the fun.

My husband’s speech was incurably tragic,

“What the deuce did you go? You have no end of a head on your shoulders, love, but you are quite incompetent for simply doing nothing. Why the internal blazes should you want to please everyone?”

I admitted,

“I just was thinking how upset she would be with me if I didn’t go. You don’t know how I’m tired of always thinking how to make everybody happy and forgetting about myself.”

I attempted to smile, but my grin suddenly went wrong and I bust out with tears of self-pity.

My husband always had that daring disregard of public opinion.

“You should take no notice of what others think about you. Put yourself first, love. You’ll have more happiness for us if you save yourself from constantly making others happy.”

“Oh, you are preaching to me again,” whispered I with the right smile this time and the right kiss that followed it.

I prepared myself for a plunge into cold waters of hesitative “I cannot promise” and definite “No.”

I always lived more for others than for myself.

I promised things in a bantering way, only to discover later on that it put me and my family in all the turvydome of inconveniences.

I positively agreed to take my niece to her karate class every Wednesday.

The polite answer would’ve been a magic “I cannot promise.”

I told my girlfriend I will edit her papers.

I should’ve used the same doubtful “I cannot promise.”

I lent money, which was often my only means for paying bills and buying food, to help my super stylish girlfriend buy new designer shoes, dresses, and jewelry.

The simplest solution was to give her my explicit “No.”

I discovered the gratified satisfaction of promising nothing and getting no one upset.

There is a hungry, wolfish look about a person striving for approval from everybody.

You are born to experience the world and adore your ineffable presence in it—not to please others.

Recognize your own capacity and feel the paternal protectiveness of hesitative “I don’t know,” “I cannot promise,” and straightforward “No” that makes you the master of your life.

How Death Heightens All Memories and Dissolves All Painful Recollections

Leave a comment

She had acquired only delight from the perusal of the years together

Photo from the author

When the despair of death eats into your soul, the only consolation left is to live in a fool’s paradise of happy memories.

My father was aggressively cheerful and terribly charismatic. He began every conversation with passion and ended it in an obsession.

Women always had conceived for him a dog-like adoration. My mother accepted it rebelliously, but it caused her pain.

Only after his accidental death ten years ago, the memory of his loving nature became a source of happiness to her instead of misery.

With my father passing away, my mother’s life altered. It became calm as a river without the cascades and waterfalls, the eddies, whirlpools, and rocks, which my father had always created.

She had time in abundance to reflect and remember.

She had time in profusion to cry. But her tears were partly tears of happiness.

She loved her husband now with a new love because in her memory their life together was a complete felicity.

The visions about their love oozed from my mother every time we found each other alone.

She used to say,

“He had a knack of saying beautiful things, which caught people on the raw.”

With loving power, she added,

“He told things to me with his voice, and he laughed at my jokes with his heart. I loved every minute of our conversations. With him, I felt such happy freedom of being myself, of talking my mind.”

Time is a perfect artist.

It can craft your remembrance into poetry.

One quiet evening my dear mother and I drank champagne, and the conversation about my father bundled us invisibly.

After the third glass, she whispered,

“I shrank, I tried to make myself smaller still as I cuddled up against his body.”

“There was so much wrathful beating pain in her voice.

“I had expected so much, and that is why I secured so little of the beautiful, emotional moments we shared. Now I pick up every piece with so much care. When he was beside me, I was too often tired of love and hate, tired of my expectations. My life seemed to overflow into his life. I complained of being his shadow, of not having enough of his devotion, and of having too much of his intimate longing. I just needed to enjoy his passion, to thank heaven for the gift of making love every day.”

I was devouring her with my eyes and learning a completely unknown side of my mother.

I had a notion she had more than a grain of truth in her words about expectations.

Our energy is superabundant when we use it on nursing our assumptions, trying to read the hidden meanings in every action, predicting the worst from little coldnesses that pain us.

When my father died, my mother stopped expecting anything from him.

And this change propelled the recollections of how much he had to offer when he was alive.

How death can heighten all memories and dissolve all irksome recollections

Imagine that your memory is a form of storage with many chests, boxes, and strange cupboards full of beads, stones, and crystals.

When someone we love passes away, delightful remembrances strive to take all the room in our head.

Every relationship has its moments of utter despair.

The inevitable disillusionment always happens at some point but pooh-poohs itself when death is taking charge.

Usually, we are able to taste this kind of love only when it is too late.

We cease to demand anything, and the lack of expectations gives us the blissful equilibrium that we all are craving.

The ghastly distinctness of painful memories is lost amid the full vent of a passionate desire to commemorate the best.

I wish we could adopt the same attitude when the dear person we care about is still beside us, warm and soft, kind and loving, gentle, and often pathetic.

Only glorious should be left after death.

Rearrange in Your Fashion the Person You Love. Mistake That Costs You Your Happiness

Leave a comment

The valuable wisdom of the Tao Te Ching teaches how to avoid a common blunder of many otherwise happy couples

Olya Aman

43rd Verse.

The softest of all things overrides the hardest of all things.

That without substance enters where there is no space. Hence I know the value of nonaction.

Teaching without words, performing without actions — few in the world can grasp it — that is the master’s way.

Rare indeed are those who obtain the beauty of this world.

— Lao-Tzu

When I read those verses, in an instant, like a shock from the blue, they spoke to me. Shaking authority, they told me, “Just see how you can understand what I say, will you?” And hunting through the years of my married life, I’ve found proof of every word, explicit confirmation of every thesis.

I’ve chosen only one verse that can give you insight into the art of creating a happy relationship.

Our first year of married life was absurd and entirely enlightening in such a manner as to be almost legendary. My husband’s political speeches on the place of man and woman in the family union were anecdotal and gave rise to loud protests and clarion laughter from me. My spy games and intellectual schemes aimed to enliven his daily schedule and make planning a permanent habit tired him out.

“Your day is a brainless harlequinade. You sleep till 3 p.m. and stay awake till 3 a.m. Your absence in the morning irritates me like a gap, faded spot, on the wall where a painting used to hang.”

I couldn’t quite decide whether I wanted to cry in pity for myself or to shout in an angry fit just for the same reason.

“You are a master of radiant rationality. To compare your husband with a piece of drawing,” his eyes under the darkly drawn brows were bright with amusement, “that is certainly one to you.”

Our life arrangement left me in pure puzzledom. We barely spent any time together. Being a morning person, I felt my energy fading away with the sun leaving the horizon. My husband, on the contrary, was at the peak of his activity just at the time when my eyes were closing fast asleep.

Make it fair between us was my primary aim.

There still was a heavy, oppressive sense of thunder in the air each time we started this ancient debate.

My husband wanted his strength to be prodigious.

“We’ll crack our old misunderstanding when you admit that there cannot be all equal between a wife and a husband in a family.”

I motioned him in with my left hand, gave one of my characteristic ‘h’ms’, and pulled his ear with my right in a particular, sensual way — the way that always showed the real power of the ‘weak’ sex.

The softest of all things overrides the hardest of all things.

That without substance enters where there is no space. Hence I know the value of nonaction.

We were on the verge of separation when alas realized that achieving harmony and happiness involves acceptance and nonaction. This tiny alteration tipped our entire life over. It was a perfect mental somersault because the long-awaited change shambled into our relationship unawares.

Teaching without words, performing without actions — few in the world can grasp it — that is the master’s way.

Rare indeed are those who obtain the beauty of this world.

By being more tolerant, ironically, my husband and I feel happier than when we tried so hard to better our life. We still have things to discuss now and then, mind you. Without being didactic and exaggerated, we out-distance any conflicts.

That foxy old scheme of love and care always works. We hug the axiom that it is vital to underrate the troubles and overrate the affections in all disputes.

Today we live softly and without effort. Accept each other quietly, without force. Enjoy being together easily, without a struggle. We allow the change without pushing it.

She Hated Me Because I Wouldn’t Hate Her

Leave a comment

My best friend happened to be a monomaniac

Olya Aman
Her boyfriend falling in love with me was the last link that held back her devilish hatred.

Eva and I were friends from the first day in college. For seven years, we were spending hours together, talking in person and on the phone. She was a year older and had an air of superiority about her. Now I know I felt some patronage chord in her attitude towards me. A simple village girl, I was shy and sensitive to every misfortune and any offender—easy prey for a person in need of dominance.

Our decision to live together was an odious ordeal destined for a devastating failure. I realized much later the reasons for Eva’s abusive ignorance and suppressive silence at that time. I’m not sure if her unfortunate love affair with a man from the States whom she met on a dating website was one of them.

Eva and her man exchanged many beautiful letters; she wanted me to read them all. I was happy with her happiness. Those loving vibes were the only bright emotions at that difficult time in my life. When he came to Minsk for two weeks, they rented a fashionable flat and had a beautiful, as I thought at the time, fortnight together. I lunched with them once. My father took us all on a ride to our village house. A quiet dinner and a stroll around the rural sights followed it. Eva’s American boyfriend left, and as far as I knew, they continued close communication, planning their future together.

I couldn’t pretend anymore not to understand when I finally understood perfectly well the reasons for that change in Eva. She intended her sudden reserve and complete disregard to be abusive, but it looked pathetic.

I was a sincere, gentle girl. Eva was a city diva. I never considered myself beautiful, only good looking. Eva carried herself as if admiration was a common thing she pocketed every day. But I couldn’t be got to envying beauty. And this beauty wanted to be envied.

Eva favored my friendship only to look superior to my somewhat shabby outfit. She saw me as a dependant—to make me feel a failure. I didn’t feel it. I never thought that frugal life is something I should be ashamed of. After seven years of it, I didn’t turn a hair. By that time, she was a monomaniac with her hatred throttling everything good still left in her.

The crisis she planned was this long-awaited meeting with her man. Eva offered that country drive with my dad to my homely place to show the contrast between us to this handsome American. Too late, she realized her miscalculation.

The honored and mature boyfriend of hers spent many years in Afghanistan building schools and universities, helping the ones in need. My now-dead father, with no knowledge of English, became his best friend. My mother’s hospitality made his eyes water. On leaving our cozy little cottage, he gave my father a handmade prayer rosary he always carried in his breast pocket.

I still don’t know if I was the reason for their relationship to end. I’m almost positive he, being a gentleman, never as much as mentioned my name to her.

I divorced my husband and moved to the United States. One day, I found myself reading a love letter from Eva’s man. It was a complete surprise, and I hope my response, full of respect, gratitude, and gentle rejection, didn’t cause too much pain to this beautiful person.

A Skeleton in My Family’s Cupboard Is a Skeleton of a Dog

Leave a comment

Penetrate the darkness which clouded over the fate of one girl

This story begins in a sheepfold — it associates with kids — gropes its way through dreadful life mutilation, and stops where only death reigns. – Olya Aman

I reveal this tale in the first person — the way it was told to me by my cousin, let it be written. I’ll use all my mastery over the written word to give it the voice and mood of the people involved.

I was guilty of an act of naughtiness every time I had any chance to tax my parents’ patience. I wanted a dog, and when my mom agreed with few objections, I chose the ugliest little creature ever existent. I always was the black sheep of the flock, and my dog was no better. When my mom was holding my hand in front of a cage with the eight offsprings of our neighbor’s huge German King Shepherd, I saw her scowl at the little baldy black pup—and I knew instantly which one to take home with me.

He was the smallest of the brood and, surprisingly, grew up to be the biggest of the eight. He did everything with a bang; he barked in season and out of it. Dundee, the name I picked to commemorate my love for the famous movie Crocodile Dundee, was mad with rage at cats and rats, and mad with love for kids and chickens. He would let all children do what they pleased with him, ride on his back, drag him by his tail, pull his ears. Dundee licked the faces of girls and only the hands of boys.

It was our second year together when I began to suspect that Dundee was unfaithful to me. I discovered that he had fallen in love with the prettiest thing in our village.

Alisa, that was the name of the girl, was somewhat handicapped. She seemed to live in a dream, talking about flowers and imagining herself to be a dandelion. She danced, not walked, sang instead of talking, and was dressed only in green.

Her father was a simple widower. About a month before the dreadful scene, Victor brought the most heartless and deceitful person of the entire region to our remote village. He was known to beat his wife when liquor got into his head. There was definitely a screw loose in his head when it came to pretty young ladies. Women and men alike scolded Victor for associating with this vile person. But Alisa’s father turned a deaf ear to all those warnings.

Victor never left his precious daughter home alone.

That unfortunate day, a call from his malicious friend forced him to go out late at night. He claimed the occasion not worth explaining on the phone and demanded to see Victor in person. Victor looked in his daughter’s room. The girl was fast asleep, and he thought somehow it would be ok to leave her for a couple of hours unattended.

At the same time, in my room, my furious beast was out of all sorts. It was the only hour when my dog was invariably by my side. Dundee was continuously whining and scratching at the closed door. He never behaved like that before. I gave in and let him go.

We learned from Victor the account of the events that followed.

“I heard the loud barking when I was halfway to the pub where I had the arranged meeting. Dundee almost knocked me to the ground. The brute was pulling the sleeve of my coat and dragging me homewards. Then I had a notion, you know, a tightening in the heart. Something was amiss with my girl.

“When I approached the house, I saw the light in my daughter’s bedroom. The dog rushed past me, barking viciously all the time. When I entered the room, Dundee was on top of that man. My Alisa was sitting on her bed with her nightdress on the floor and her pretty little face agitated. I covered her in a blanket and ran out of the room to prevent her from seeing the scene of a murder.

“I couldn’t help the man. Even then, being so much shaken by what happened, I thought he richly deserved his cruel fate. I needed to save the fragile mind of my precious daughter.”

Victor called the police and the ambulance. The death from fatal wounds inflicted by a German King Shepherd named Dundee was stated.

The dog, though, was nowhere to find.

The law said to put the beast to sleep in a case like that. Police officers and volunteers searched through and through, but they didn’t find Dundee.

Alisa was not seriously harmed. She continues to be a beautiful dandelion in her green dress, walking the fields and singing her songs even today.

We seldom talked about the dog. I believed him alive, hiding somewhere.

My father told me some years later the true fate of my brave Dundee. That horrid night Victor called my father, and only when my dad took the dog out of the house and into his van, aiming at his brother’s farm a hundred and fifty miles away, Victor called the ambulance and the police.

Shortly after my discovery, I went to my uncle’s farm to learn about my friend’s further life.

Here is what my uncle said:

“Your dog was worth his weight in gold. He lived a solitary life on my farm, running after the rats and cats and affectionately mothering the chickens. He never expressed any even slight attachment to me or any human being. His heart was forever given to that little flower girl, I think. I often saw him wandering among the fields with a bunch of dandelions in his mouth.”

I saw the earth’s elevation under the only tree in a vast field quite far from the house. It was his favorite spot, my uncle said.

I battled out of my lethargy and laid a bouquet of dandelions on his grave.

I Found 7 Profound Reasons to Be Patient, and It Saved My Family

26 Comments
I found patience at a crisis in my life… the blessing that greeted my nature – Olya Aman

Keeping the kids nice and neat, the house cozy and welcoming, the food tasty and nourishing—I reduced my restful, sleeping hours to about four a day, comforting myself with thoughts about excellence and perfection of my life.

In three months I felt as if I was groping forward a few steps in my daily life and strolling backward with increasing speed. The little one cried almost every night with no obvious reason. I often lost my temper with my four-year-old.

The growing family forced my husband to accept an offer of higher pay and longer absence from home, often being away on his business trips for weeks in a row. Left alone with kids I could not find energy enough to keep my old acquaintances and friends. I was busy and very lonely.

I kept reproaching myself for lack of attention to my husband and kids. Too often I ended up snappish in my manner.

The atmosphere at home became suffocating. My husband was providing for the wellbeing of our family, and I was devoting myself fully to the kids. Although our generous impulses had the best intentions, the outcome didn’t provide lasting happiness.

I was aching to the distant time of those happy days when my husband was at home every night. The tears I shed on the occasion of his coming home from another business trip caused the sacred emotional transformation. The only solution was to reunite our family, sacrificing some pleasant but unnecessary luxuries on the way.

My husband decided to go back to his old employment with lower pay and higher healthy, meaningful time spent with his family. With each day at home and each family dinner, the healthy and benign atmosphere was coming back to the house.

We abandoned our expensive car for a cheaper and a trifle less comfortable one and our pompous yearly vacations for a lovely countryside escape. When a chain of unlucky events at my husband’s work culminated in his losing the position, we didn’t despair. We lived out of our humble savings and occasional company commissions that I still received now and then.

My husband, freed up from the necessity to go every day to the office, finally could devote his time to his music experiments. He used to compose wonderful pieces when in college.

My husband was shutting himself up in his study at night, interrupting his work for rounds with our crying son. The little creature grew quieter with time, sensing my increasing tranquility. I had my full night’s sleep thanks to my husband’s loving help. Our older son got much attached to his father with his bedtime stories and childish fighting games.

Sometimes the artistic progress was dishearteningly slow. Producing music, though, became more familiar with each failing attempt at reaching the desired effect. I believed in his talent and future success. I encouraged his persistent work.

The daily treadmill of our home life was sweet and enchanting, notwithstanding the portioned to us hardships. I liked to see my husband, to hear him about the place and at his music work.

One year left us with a feeling that we’ve accomplished a lot of good for our family, which no money could buy. The second year brought the first small yet increasingly delightful music projects. My husband and a few of his college friends got back together and created a small-movie company.

All three of their movies presented at the festivals didn’t gain recognition. My husband became an instigator and a powerful motivator for his small company lot.

His music grew strange, turbulent and insistent, soft and plaintive—and the movie they produced with not much money but with great blissful inspiration became a winner.