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.
Olya Aman 