Know the difference between distractive loneliness and desired solitude
My kind of loneliness rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of my life. – Olya Aman
I stole cautiously towards my secluded bench in the middle of a little island of sunflowers in their utmost bloom and richness of color. One would be almost invisible amongst those kingly looking plants with their golden crowns and massive leaves.
My face during that tough, lonely period of my life was a good deal over-serious for my two and twenty. I was well-nigh alien to this stunning and bewildering scene. My gloominess quite confounded the senses.
I looked at the boy on my bench, my neighbor, in mute and timid wonder. How did he end up on my patch? The intelligence that shone in the deep green eyes of this autistic boy, when I finally had a chance to look into them, seemed scarcely of his age, or of the world. The changing expression of good humor and seriousness, his ability to blush very red to the ears, made me admire a thousand lights that played about his face.
When I rented a small cottage in this remote village, I took no notice of other people and very little of this boy, although we were house to house neighbors and met often coming out and getting in our homely places, both thresholds facing each other. I seemed hard upon my thoughts, constantly looking down as if examining my boots and the ground right under my feet.
That day I smiled at this boy and said a word of polite greeting, but he, dedicated to his thoughts, didn’t respond. I discovered that this ability to concentrate made him a fantastic listener. At that moment in my life, he became my salvation. I was pouring on him a torrent of personal sentiments.
Not looking at me, he said, “L.. l.. l..”, then a long pause. The boy had a severe stammer. Finally, he produced his name in an unusually deep baritone, “Liam”. We communicated in notes from his side and words from mine. The first thing he wrote was, “You are lonely.” And he was right.
I told him my love story and although he avoided any eye contact and scribbled something in his little journal all the way; I knew he was all ears.
“I am in love with a dead person. If I knew him longer, I could have loved him longer. I miss his clear and pure miniature skies under the arch of his eyebrows. Only in his company I felt no need to think of what to say. Every moment of silence was a blessing, every word uttered was a revelation. He poured out more treasures of his luxurious inner nature in one minute than anyone else could’ve done in his entire life.” Liam brushed tears from my cheeks with his checked handkerchief. It was so old and soft, as if a tender touch of a mother.
“Only two years I spent in this blissful state. He missed our second anniversary. He‘d been run over by a car.”
Liam handed me a note with the following question, “Do you feel that your happiness is owing to him, and without his presence, your existence lacks purpose?” This boy could read my heart.
We met every day on that same bench. I was talking; he was scribbling. I said to Liam that I voluntarily chose isolation. I nurtured the notion I differed from all other people that surrounded me. I saw the world in clouds and fogs rather than in colors and vibes. I perceived people as rough creatures, not fit to understand my pain and be my companions.
I busied myself diving in my newly formed plan of moving to the village and burring my over-drained mind in simple farm occupations that required no thinking but just hard physical work. I used to have the vastness of feelings to lose myself in. Now I tried to be forgotten and forget.
When at home I felt my words thrown out, conversations started and no one to address them to. I used to defend myself tragically in an empty room in front of an imaginary lover. My bitter remarks dashed in vain against empty walls. I ate and drank, but it didn’t put any heart in me.
I couldn’t sleep, the night was fast closing, not gifting me with rejuvenating rest. I carried myself with the air of a weary person, feeling the claws of depression pressing harder on my chest. I had no tools to cope with stress, life attractions seemed to be hidden from my eyes. I found it harder with each day to approach people.
Liam listened. When I was done, he handed me his journal and smiled.
Liam handed me his journal. He had written only a few lines.
“There is a difference between loneliness that drains your spirit and solitude that restores it. You are not seeking peaceful solitude. You are hiding inside painful loneliness.”
He paused before writing again.
“Open the door to people, even if only a little at a time. Let someone sit beside your silence. Speak when you are ready. Listen when others speak. We belong to one another more than we think.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then added one final sentence.
“Give love without measuring it. It almost always finds its way back.”
Friendship, which before these days seemed impossible, crept in my life accompanied by blithesome music of this boy’s kind heart. That music taught me to value the treasures of the heart over any material possessions. I stopped feeling superior over others, admitting that I had tons to learn from simple people with little to boast of in terms of monetary luxuries, and so much in terms of values of the heart.
When I let myself be open to the truest, warmest, soul-felt gratitude — I saw more smiling faces around. The reason was simple — the charming smile found its way to my face, and even though I had forgotten how to wear it, my gentle nature was always ready to master every positive skill all over again. I learned to share the devotion and affection of my nature so long locked and sealed inside my soul. This transformation brought deep and lasting relationships with other people.
My mind was firmly set on never to return to the sorrow and calamity of my past distractive life apprehensions. I intended to not let my positive spirit tarnish. My long suffered heart found the perfect formula for happiness, and the key element in it was a strong connection to other people.
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.
Spend precious moments stubbornly biting your lips, speaking sternly, and acting openly… – Olya Aman
Dima was my first boyfriend. A terrible bore as he was, I loved him dearly. I always thought him to be above the average in the firmness of his mind. He read classic literature and spoke the language of 19th century romance. We were young and very much in love.
Dima was a sensible and handsome young boy of twenty at the time. I was a smart, pretty girl of eighteen with merry grey eyes and lofty, intelligent forehead. Today when I see a photo of us together, I remember how contagiously happy we were.
One incident ruined our happiness. Dima thought himself deceived, duped, and hopeless. A slough scandal was spread through the entire village and finally found its way to Dima’s ears. The tempest of doubt and dread, of jealousy and rage, almost blinded him. Some shallow minds believed it right away. People that wished us bad luck were rejoicing.
I got to the root of it only by hints and innuendos, as no one dared to speak openly with me about it. I stopped any intercourse with the poisoned humanity, the ones that readily accepted the circulating vile slander.
Dima’s spirits rose almost to madness when he heard the dreadful story of me being unfaithful to our love. I thought nothing could crush his faith in our shared future. The story was a lame one. Unfortunately, he believed that I could swear love to someone else.
The first night after discovering that his best friend was an instigator of the slander, a paroxysm of anger disquieted Dima’s breathing, and he bitterly reproached himself for the moment of weakness. His friend, a worthless reprobate, an impracticable fool, gave food to envenomed tongues, and they started to talk about me as if I was a little frivolous kitten going around and gifting my love to insipid individuals.
Eventually, Dima cut all ties with that false friendship. Forgot the way to his friend’s house. Wiped him off his phone contacts and social media accounts. He brushed the dirt of this acquaintance from his life. After what happened, Dima knew too well to keep such people at a great distance from his life.
My heart rejoiced when my parents and my elder sister took my side in this insinuated story. I felt strong support and stoic faith from them. My close friends showed me the true value of their relationship. People that sincerely wished me to be happy took pains to consider everything thoroughly. They recollected what they knew about me and found not even one reason to surrender to the falsehood circulating in the village.
This occurrence served as a great lesson for both of us. Dima’s so-called friend, being a jealous and wicked person, ruined our happiness. He did his utmost to bring about a fatal collapse to the true love between two faithful hearts.That unfortunate affair taught me to avoid provokingly jealous, heartless, and artificial people. I clean my life from any false attachment.
Today I make my life a pleasant experience, awakened by grand people. The mention of any piece of news that concerns me is heart-felt when coming from a loving soul and easily forgotten when coming from a distant and unimportant acquaintance.
I painstakingly pieced this story from the several treasured excerpts of her diary
You must have a divine heart to be so full of vigor when life is a misery, filled with it like a precious vase… – Olya Aman
My mother makes beauty beautiful. She dreams in words of love and hope when her life is tragic enough to make my face distort with darkness.
Her life is a sad song for an outsider and a bright red fire for those who have the privilege to know the divine rebellion of her smile and the great resoluteness of her mind.
My mother gifted me with her beautiful diary on my 30th birthday. I painstakingly pieced this story together from the treasured excerpts of her diary.
May 1988: “I buried myself in the full of soul eyes of my dying husband. I know I need to think of my dear child and myself for her sake, but it is so hard to tear myself from his bedside. His sufferings make my heart weep. I wish I could sacrifice myself and save him. His voice rising painfully when he holds my hand and pronounces my name. I quiver with restrained grief and smile to cheer him up.”
My father was going through tormenting sufferings on his way to the end of life. His pain, the result of advanced incurable cancer, was inadequately relieved. The question of surgery was not even possible to discuss. It was too late.
May 1988: “My diary is my salvation. I often write and hold his hand in mine. I put on paper what I feel and fold it in two. I plead and pray to God and hide it in my soul.”
July 1988: “He is in constant pain but looks the very incarnation of quiet bravery and love. Even in his intolerable condition, he strives to carry away my disquietude by talking about the beauty of life after death and the pleasure I should feel on this earth even when he will leave me.”
August 1988: “Whenever he is awake from his tired slumber he asks me to write the messages to daughter so I can deliver it to her when she will grow up to understand the preciousness of every word that was voiced through pain and suffering. I like to listen to his sentiments. I love his extreme good sense, his exquisite taste, and the feeling of life. He urges our girl to be uncompromisingly bold in the defense of her opinion and life principals, to be earnest and keen in pursuing her dreams, and to win the esteem of her mother and father by vindicating her character from any unkind inclination.”
October 1988: “With an agitated, burning heart and brain, I live through every minute of my life without him. How do I dare to live when he is not among the living? The one who in intellect, in purity and elevation of soul, was immeasurably superior to anyone I know. I rush outside to cool my feelings in the balmy winter air, and to compose myself each time I feel the hot tears coming to my throat. The solitude of my garden helps me to put on a gleeful smile to cheer my child.”
December 1988: “The poison of this loss spreads through all my essence. I now recognize its harmful intentions. The serious depth of it may kill life within me. I fight it, turn my back upon it. I seek retirement for my pain in taking care of my girl. She is my salvation. I let my head to be carried away by her childish ideas. There is no better cure like a merry, simple-hearted child — ever ready to cement broken heart, to melt the ice of freezing soul, and overthrow the walls of sorrowful isolation.
March 1989: “My mother is my faithful friend. When I see a flash of love in her eyes, a glow of sincere care on her face — I think that one day I will cease to feel this pain. When throbbing recollection flashes upon me, and a cloud of sorrow darkens my eyes, I talk to her: in person, on the phone, or in my mind, and a moment of inward conflict gives place to quiet conduct. I start to behave with exceeding calmness so that she never had to reprove me once.”
November 1989: “I started my diary with more truth than wisdom. In the beginning, I was still fearing to be rooted to my loss. Often the paroxysm of pain and despair was preventing me from saying what I was intended to say. A torrent of tears stained the pages with misery, and I prayed for forgetfulness. But only memory gave life to my words. Never do I endure so long, so blissful nights as when I write. I go through every moment of happiness and pain all over again. My goal is to keep the fire of my foaming and swelling with emotions life engaging and bright, so it warms the heart of my child when I give it to her to read and remember.”
September 1990: “Smiles and tears are so alike with me. I often cry when there is nothing left but to laugh and smile when I am in bitter grief. My diary is my remedy. I feel graceful easiness and freedom about all I do these days. The expansion that this new activity gives to my mind is so refreshing.”
October 1990: “I cannot stop writing. A broad sea is rolling between my past and present. My soul is forever united to the one that is dead in body but always living in my heart. My husband is my everyday companion. I feel his soothing presence. And this feeling of our reunion is not sad anymore, but rejuvenating.”
My mother started a diary and found consolation in putting her feelings on paper. Writing those down by-the-by brought consolation. It brightened the doomed comprehension of life. The melancholy musings and painful lamentations stayed on paper.
The words of sorrow, written in her diary, purchased solace and tranquility.
To linger here or to feel that you belong… — Olya Aman
T. is a lean, long-backed, large-headed Lebanese, with surly tones of his voice and coarse features of his face. We scour the country together every now and then: I—on my feet and he—on his wheels. His wheelchair is a speedy little beast, accelerated by his mighty hands and skillfully maneuvered by his flexible torso.
T. is my dear friend. You would never believe looking at his expressive and full of exhilarating energy face, that death had been hovering over him just three years ago.
The dark night in T.’s life crept slowly on, unexpected and unwelcomed. The sun rose and sank, and he was dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever.
A weak, thin, and pallid face was looking at him from the multi-squared mirror lights of the hospital ceiling. Outside the window strangers in and out, smiling and crying, old folks and newborns—all colors of countenances and personalities were passing through his painful perception for forty-three thousand agonizing wakeful minutes of his confinement to the bed.
When starting to sit down to his meals, still dispirited and sad, the realization that the chains of grief were the heaviest of all fetters came to T.’s mind. The belief in a higher intelligent plan and purpose was still holding him tight, not letting him sink into that despair completely.
T. needed to return to the world he belonged. Hour by hour the drop of every happy memory brought back first feeble streams of life. The fairest consolation came in disguise of a prayer. He applied himself with assiduity to the task of reviving his inner and outer strength so his family could be proud of him.
He made off as fast as he could to lay his spirits to the ground and managed to get himself out of the bed and on his wheels with surprising speed. Every morning he called before his mind’s eye a vast amphitheater of loving faces of his dear people.
He didn’t feel his legs anymore, but that missing part of his body was substituted by strains of overly agitated nerves of his arms and spine. He followed on the track of strengthening his torso every instant he felt the need to hue-and-cry to the missing limbs.
T.’s life hanged heavy on his hands even before the turning point that left him without legs. Being 32-years-old, he had been poring over various subjects. It seemed a matter of impossibility to center his life around fitness and body healing strategies now when he lost almost half of it, but this idea was firmly impressed upon his mind. T. became transfixed with the desire to achieve the heights he didn’t even think possible for his fully-functional healthy past-self.
He set his heart firmly on a goal to become a physical therapist working in amputee rehabilitation. He became a world known inventor of dynamic specific strengthening exercises that flex and tone the muscles. His online teaching courses are empowering. His own experience gives him psychological advantage to motivate people who suffered a loss to set goals and move on with their lives.
The impressive stateliness that radiated from T. was adopted from his mentor. The simplicity of his mentor’s life stirred T. profoundly. This person was happy, chasing his dreams and loving his family. With neither legs nor arms he was shining with heart strength and will-power. Every trace of T.’s essence strove to be worthy of the second chance he was given.
T. still had a realizing sense of his weakness and captivity. But he was recovering his life-balance by an effort of willpower and desire to set an example for others.
He conveyed a message that whatever happened to him was not a run of ill-luck but a fortunate wakeful blessing. He shared many talks on how to accept the past and devotedly love your-past-self and present-self.
He received many compassionate comments on his media channels. The influence which his sincere contented personality exercised was deep and lasting. People saw a humble person just like themselves, never repenting on his helplessness, but actually claiming to be powerful enough to uplift his own spirit and inspire others to do the same.
“Unlike her mother, she loved herself just the way she was”
I met Natasha when I was in hospital as a child, on some trifling issue with my collarbone. We got together somehow. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature was the best recommendation for me. Natasha was always disposed to chatter, and I loved to listen to her stories. So, when she invited me to snatch a meal at her parents’ house on one of the weekends, I agreed with delight.
A Mother’s Heart
I was aware that Natasha felt somewhat uneasy to introduce me to her mom. But Natasha sensed a kind and open heart in me and wanted my smiling face to cheer her family.
I did my best to not show my astonishment at seeing her mother. But I bet it was all written on my over expressive face. I never before or since saw a woman so big. I was just a shy child and on my asking if there was anything I could do to help her with setting up the table or getting the tea ready, she became suddenly annoyed and left the room without saying a word.
I felt her unease and pain as my own. I didn’t think a moment but acted on impulse. Rushing right after her, I hugged her and cried bitterly in her soft bosom.
Natasha’s mother was a beautiful woman, shy and gentle, kind and sincere in everything she did. She, just like me, was oversensitive. She had a way of noticing even a slight change in people’s attitude towards herself, and she took it too close to her heart.
That was a magic night. I do not remember laughing so much ever since.
Second Encounter
I left the hospital in a week and we lost each other, being a few years apart and busy with our lives.
In my last year at university, just before moving overseas, I rented an apartment with my friend. The kids next door were noisy little devils. On one occasion they were fighting in the little corridor we shared and ruined our shoe shelf. Their mom came out of the door just at the time when I was vainly trying to rescue my boots out of the younger boy’s hands.
I was so much taken up by the drama in front of me that I didn’t right away realize that a lady next door was dragging me out of the fighting boys’ way and into her apartment. I found myself in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the lucky boot in one hand and a cup of fragrant tea in the other.
I was well rewarded for my pains with love and hospitality bestowed on me by my old friend Natasha.
“Forget about the little rascals, Oly,” Natasha was the only person calling me so. “They will get their share of motherly affection when I’m done with you.”
We hugged and kissed, we laughed and chatted till midnight, Natasha’s husband dealing with the kids.
We were throwing tea parties almost every night since then.
Her husband adored her, children obeyed her ALMOST every time, and unlike her mother, she loved herself just the way she was.
Natasha needed to go out more often, though. I knew that, she knew that, and her husband secretly asked me to encourage her.
Her mother died at 43. Too many health complications caused by extra weight. So, Natasha needed to change her life to be there for her family.
I asked her a few times to run some errands for me, excusing myself by the business of my working and studying schedule. Then I offered evening walks instead of evening tea rounds. Half hour strolls gave way to an hour one, temp getting faster, music accompanying conversations.
Natasha loved music. Her tuneless yet sweet humming was pleasing to the ear. I found out there was a dancing studio nearby. The time worked for both of us and I urged her to try. She became friendly with the elderly woman instructor. Gradually that kind and sincere lady took the place of a coach in Natasha’s life.
I got into a habit of sending Natasha a motivational postcard each month with little writings coming from my heart. She sent me photos of her-improving-self in gorgeous dresses she crafted for her dance performances.
Natasha turned 44 last year. She always had a fear in her kind heart to have a similar fate as her mom had. Natasha stopped thinking this way the day she felt a deserved pride from being herself.
Although her health improved significantly with some weight loss, the bigger change was in her attitude toward herself.
To the outside observer, Natasha’s body didn’t change very much. Maybe some curves got more prominent and sensual, that was all.
She WAS and IS bathing in love coming from her husband and kids.
In her eyes, there is a real, rattling satisfaction. She goes about singing and dancing, knowing how to showcase her inner and outer beauty. A growing admiration from the men and women of her dancing studio and applause from the smiling audience proved to her the thing she always knew but seldom voiced proudly.
Let us be acquainted with my childhood friend Marta.
She is my noble and generous friend. Noble not by birth but by her personal qualities, virtues of the heart. Our strange friendship started in the first grade and ended in the 8th… to be renewed with the boldness, freedom, and maturity of womanhood.
When in school, Marta used to make fun of everyone in a boisterous manner. When someone came to the class with a new school bag the classmates used to say, “Marta will be mad before long, you wait and see.” And sure to the word, she gave enough time to lamentations that all the kids were ready to swallow up all the new things they had before Marta could lay her envious eye on them. They called her ‘the practical’ because of her love for all material things.
I rarely had anything popular at the time: the cool gadget pet that you can feed and it grows into a funny fat cat or a scary huge beast; the pretty multicolor pants all girls adored and considered the only possession that can pave you a way to a popular kids’ group; the denim backpack with numerous pockets, belts and buckles that every boy and a girl had; the list is endless. The lack of those things made my life a nightmare sometimes. I was an outcast in old neatly looking pants, and a sweater my mom made with so much love that I felt her hugging me each time I heard a bullying accusation. I looked so lovely in it, which made every teacher adore me. And… yes, I was hated for that even more.
Marta’s parents were respected doctors with busy schedules and no time for sentiments. She was well dressed, well fed, well groomed… and not loved enough. There were no grandparents to substitute the lack of genuine affection, her whole being was craving for.
She started to take a fancy to me mostly because I seldom had anything worth her attention and I liked her, because she was the only child walking home with me. My friendship happened to be the most precious thing for the child that could have everything in her life but for sincere affection.
After 8th grade, we’ve lost each other. Marta and her family moved to live in the nearby city, and I stayed in my native village till graduation.
A few years ago, a nice-looking woman entered my train compartment. The long trip to the far-away city was shortened to a thought provoking and tears causing conversation.
I wanted Marta to make the running. The inner writer and explorer of human mines raining in me. I was resolved to persevere in my silent patronage of the conversation.
Marta gave voice to her inner child, and we cried bitterly and laughed heartily at the memories of a girl who considered gifts to be the merits of love. A girl who could ill bear when someone had things she considered pretty and nice. She thought that meant someone was loved more — and that notion was painful for a child deprived of a genuine feeling.
That day in the compartment Marta looked contented. Strong character was visible in the physiognomy of this young woman with her big unmoving eyes, her almost lipless mouth, and a high intelligent forehead. Marta carried herself with confidence. There was not even a passing feeling of irritation, only that physical beauty that comes from the loving energy inside.
I was not able to take my eyes off her. She radiated positive energy and every word she shared was saturated with thoughtful consideration. I couldn’t help thinking that the person in front of me was not the Marta I knew.
When I asked her about the turning point, the element in her life that caused this alteration, Marta fell silent for a moment, so much taken up with her thoughts that her eyes seemed to stop seeing.
The loss she endured was painful enough to make her think of what she could have exchanged for a life given back. Her parents didn’t have time to love her, but she loved them with every cell of her body and every vibe of her soul. She was only 18 when an unchained element of nature left her an orphan, her parents’ car being smashed from the road by a violent gust of wind, both her mom and dad dying instantly.
It seemed like a dream, or fiction, or chimera. Vulnerable and insecure, Marta was left alone to think about the present. The past was gone, but the future was hers. Anything in that timeframe of days bygone and days to be still lived was compared to that particular incident.
I could see into the inside of her nature with the eyes that understand and the heart that can weep in unison with her soul. I lost my father in a car accident only a few months prior to our meeting with Marta. I finally had a person who spoke to my heart with the words it could understand.
Life, after having handled her so roughly, seemed now was willing to teach her the survival skills. She found the diary her mother had, and that precious notebook was full of tender words her mother seldom voiced but no doubt felt — and that was the only thing that mattered.
Marta was not going from then on, she was led by love. The exhilarating effect that love has, changed her understanding of true values. Any envious feeling towards material possessions of others disappeared like a star lost in the distant darkness of the horizon.
Her salvation was in a feeling of gratitude. Her beauty was in the desire to devote her life to the people she loved.
Marta had no family left. She decided to have a big one comprised of abandoned children, orphans. She volunteered for many years in various orphanages around the country and abroad. Marta’s family left her a substantial legacy which she spent on education and donated to different causes.
She witnessed life undisguised, seldom gentle and often cruel. Her experience made her compassionate and generous. Marta favored a minimalist approach to material possessions. She became a passionate advocate of children’s rights. Her dream was not to have a luxurious house and an expensive car, but a tiny home full of love and child’s laughter.
Our shared journey was coming to an end. Marta waited silently for any fresh question that I could have, being a little tired from all the various emotions she forced herself to go through again. She surely satisfied all legitimate curiosity, and I let her rest and husband her strength, joining her in contemplation of a succession of low hills and rich forests outside the window.
Marta became an active, vigorous woman, and even now I can see her in my mind’s eye being happy in her chosen career. She is a therapist working with at-risk youth.
She rarely breathes a word of her private misgivings, but always opens a listening spot in her busy schedule for a friend who needs some consolation. And she offers her love with that shy grace that is so very charming.
Marta and her husband do not give up hope to have their own kids. For over 10 years, they failed to conceive. They adopted a two-year-old girl and a 13-year-old special needs boy, two siblings whom they didn’t want to separate. Every time I visit my native country, I go to their house to get the feeling of unconditional love. This family is happiness personified. Her daughter experiments with my hair and her son makes me play all known table games with him. I go home with my hair tangled and my heart singing.
Here is a conundrum indeed! How soon can you solve it?
Olya Aman
My object in parading this private affair before the reader is to commemorate the remarkable series of events and convey the evidence of what love can build and what it can destroy. – Olya Aman
I present to you here a true story with written evidence that came to my possession through the hands and words of the primary witnesses, who happen to be my friends. I intend to preserve everybody’s incognito in this tale, so let me reveal no names, no places.
Imagine a tiny town where everybody knows each other. If you think this place quiet and unremarkable, you cannot be farther from the truth. People here invent the most mysterious crime affairs to amuse themselves. The outcome of this tale proved to be the zenith of one family’s happiness and, hopefully, the nadir of their troubles.
Mother
I was asked to exaggerate nothing and suppress nothing from what happened more than thirty years ago. My imagination tends to people the darkness of those days with additional terrors sometimes. I’ll do my best to restrain from it.
I used to be a night-club, knock-about-city young girl who was determined to teach herself a lesson by marrying a simple police officer and moving to the smallest town ever existent. After the hubbub and bustle of a big city, I hoped to find soul-soothing serenity in the three-story walls of ancient buildings, corner grocery shops, wooden benches close to every threshold, and the grand loving eyes of my man.
Calm and quiet were showering upon me thick and fast. The monotony of my existence started to grind me away soon enough. I managed to hold the rapture of boredom and adventure starvation for the first three years, and the three that followed were hell for both of us indeed. My husband should have known better than marrying a woman like me.
We were living in constant gnawing anxiety. The real reason for my unhappiness was in my allusion to pain. I was sure that my relationship was lacking the spark. I was longing for emotional suffering and physical agony. It seemed to me that only torture could make me feel alive. The grim orchestra in my head was playing about the passion I lacked and the pain I craved. My tumultuous thoughts were driving me nuts.
I droned my days away in that gloomy town. Household chores: cooking, cleaning, a little bit of reading, and dreaming about some other man beside me, some different life endured. I should have found something to do in that dreary place. But what could I find with my political science degree? Too sophisticated for that place I was.
Oddly enough, only fear still kept us together. My husband, I suspected, feared loneliness and to set everyone’s tongue wagging about our private affairs. I feared my son rejecting me for breaking the family and my inner desire to inflict pain on myself and my husband. Trouble was brewing; I was asking for it.
I anticipated some unfortunate event for some weeks before that day. It started as always with a silent breakfast. Both my husband and I were tired of keeping the picture of a happy family for the sake of our six-year-old son. Mind you, we never as much as raised voice to each other. We simply didn’t talk but for hateful ‘good morning’ and ‘have a good day’.
My husband made his lunch, put a few apples in a bag for our son to take to his grandma, and both of them were gone with the usual ‘see you tonight’. At half-past six, my husband came home. I warmed up his dinner and said, “I will call your mom and ask if they are home by now? I will pick him up and take him to his karate class at seven-thirty.”
I picked the phone and dialed the number. Our son was not there. His mom thought we had some other thing scheduled. My husband grabbed the receiver from my shaking hand and pushed me gently aside. “It’s ok,” he said to his mother. He told her we forgot about some other arrangement and that he was at his friend’s place. What was he talking about? What friend? What kind of arrangement? Those questions were whirling in my head.
This done, my husband looked at me in a strange way. The intensity of his gaze silenced me. It was a look of a hungry, watchful reproach. “I’ll find him. Don’t you worry,” he said, picked up his jacket, and was gone.
Father
My family was always unspeakably precious to me. There was nothing I couldn’t do to save it. Bare it in mind while reading this narrative of mine. I loved my wife more than anything. I knew from the very beginning, she was not the woman a simple chap like me could catch and hold still in his hands. She needed drama, and drama was a rare coin in my native town. I had to mind that currency myself.
It was a custom with us to take our son to my mother’s place, so my wife had a day to herself. She said she needed that time alone, and I submitted. I seldom could say ‘no’ to anything she wanted. I usually drove to the parking lot of a three-story apartment building where my mother lived.
Our son used to get out of the car, give me his ‘see you later, dad’, enter the building and his grandma’s flat on the second floor all by himself. This brief trip gave him a sense of maturity, something to add to his list of ‘I can’.
What was wrong this time? Why wasn’t he at his usual place?
When home again, I said to my wife that I knocked at each and every door of this building, asking about our boy. No one as much as saw him that day. She blamed me, and I, half-expecting such reaction, didn’t object.
She was out of all sorts, now saying in her querulous, rattling whisper how she missed her son, now flinging distinct words of hatred into the air, now shedding a gust of tears and scratching her face, now heaving convulsively barely able to talk, imploring me to do something.
That was her niche in life, her long-awaited drama. So much feeling in every gesture — that was my beastly little girl again. I had to slap her on the face to bring her back to senses.
What an outcome from this insult! I never as much as raised a thought against a woman not talking about a hand. She caught my hand and pressed it to her burning cheek. She kissed it, then higher. My arm, shoulder, collarbone, ear lobe — what an electric shock was going through every little cell of my body! It had ceased to be my own.
The desire we both felt expanded into a series of scenes with pain and pleasure united, angry kisses, throwing each other against all surfaces. Bruising her flesh, she was getting the unsettling inner feeling out, releasing her emotional distress. When all was over, she was lying on a couch in dreamless slumber. I went out into the night to look for our son.
Grandmother
My old, cast-away husband was out of our lives for twenty years. He left us when our son was twelve. Not that he planned it. They sentenced him to three years for a drunken scuffle in a local bar. One man almost died from the severe beating my husband was to blame for. He got out of jail and out of our lives.
On our son’s thirty-second birthday, the old beggar brought his shaking frame to my flat and pleaded to have a chat with his son. I was beside myself with indignation, to say the least. I hated my husband for leaving us. Over a year, he was patiently asking for permission to be a part of our family.
My son and I agreed to see him now and then, with one condition, he had to keep it a secret. My son didn’t mention it to his wife. I never openly met him outside. Were we ashamed of him? He WAS a dosser, after all. Or were we punishing him in this way? I don’t know for sure.
I was angry with myself for being silly and liking, I couldn’t admit at the time, but LOVING was the right word, my husband, during all those years he was away. I couldn’t shake off the inveterate distrust which weighed for all those years on my spirits.
That is why when this alien and strangely familiar person asked to see his grandson, I could only stand rooted in the ‘No’ and ‘Never’. It was a very trying time for me. Eventually, he had tamed me. One day my son and I submitted to his pleadings and promised to arrange everything.
Grandfather
I was old and sick and tired of my lonely life. I had reasons of my own to leave my family. The rods of iron with which prison surrounded me were ever-present in my mind. At some point, I felt that my life was at its lowest ebb. Then and there, like a pitiful mongrel, I crept back meekly to my family. For the first time in my entire life, I humbled myself to pleading for forgiveness with all the patience I still had left in me.
I went to my old hut near the lake. I used to go there in the glorious old days when fishing. This shabby place was creepy, just as I was at that stage of my life. But still, those walls were much better than any bench I used to call home. For over a year, I waited for my wife and son to soften for me. I didn’t put my mind in total blank with the drink. I abandoned this degrading habit because I knew it could force me to lose every inch of the ground I had gained.
The day my son patted me on the shoulder and promised to let me see my grandson, my heart gave a great bound. This news almost turned me giddy. The thought half maddened me with delight. I spent the following couple of days getting ready, putting things in order at my lonely cabin. The little chap needed a cozy place to stay. I exhausted myself with plans for the future rendezvous with my boy. I knew just then — I’d lived through all misfortunes to see my grandson, to get things straight with my son, and to pray for my wife’s forgiveness.
I didn’t remember myself being as tender-hearted as at the moment my son brought this boy in his car on that day. I was fool enough to shed a couple of tears. I wanted to wipe away the wrongs my family suffered through with this last effort of submissive affection. All the gold left of my wasted nature, I poured at the feet of my grandson. I keep the memory of those two days in my heart of hearts.
Son
The air was close and stagnant in that hut. This old man was kind but rude, and he looked almost cruel. I liked him right away, though. How can it be is clean past my comprehension even now, thirty years since? He said, “Don’t middley-coddley, there a good boy. Nothing to be worried about. We’ll have a rattling good time fishing.” The old man said I could call him grandpa, and I did. I knew by my childish instinct, that was seldom wrong, he was my friend.
I remember as if it was yesterday that I never felt myself so mature, so bold and courageous, so skilled and manly. I stayed with this wrinkled weather and life beaten person for two long and memorable days. What a blast! Running in the fields, making birdhouses, playing with the shabby little dog, fishing, and cooking our fish soup over a riverside fire.
My father came with the haste of happiness in his feet in the evening of the second day. I haven’t seen him like that before. I was happy to see this change, and perhaps a little piqued too.
Mother
My husband could not sit down alone to wait through the crisis of our life. He left the house that night after we had the most sensual experience. He remembered that he was leaving an anxious heart at home and phoned me a few times, updating me on the progress of his search. He called me tender names, and I didn’t humor him as I used to.
On the second day in the early evening hours, he came home. I met him with my entire being, imploring for some uplifting news. He didn’t have any. Then I gave him a defiant look, and with mockery, I eagerly blamed him again for what had happened. I should have gone to look for my boy myself. Why did he persuade me to stay at home and wait for some developments? Oh, how my heart sank under a dread. It was beyond words.
Then he confessed. He said he didn’t plan it. We barely exchanged a few words those days, and he simply forgot to tell me he’d arranged for our son to spend a day with his grandfather. I didn’t even know the man existed. My husband never mentioned him. I assumed his father was dead. When he came home and saw my worried look when I was talking on the phone with his mother, only then he felt a plan forming itself in his brain.
He wanted to enliven my love for many years now. He didn’t know how to shake that lethargy I seemed to live in. He said that the pretense of searching for his son, the common disaster he invented, the tears and worries that both of us shared for almost two days brought us together. We were a family, at last, a mother and a father struggling to find their son.
Oh, how mad with rage I was. I called him nasty names. I was storming through our house, smashing the furniture. But in the midst of all those turbulent feelings, there was a glow of hope in me. Hang it all; he was right. I deserved the shock and shake I’d got. I was alive with burning emotions. I breathed passion in the air.
The strange march of events during those two days changed the course of our lives forever. Happy life ever after? Oh, by Heaven, no. But eventful, for sure. We made it a rule always to break the monotony and to meet our passion half-way. When our boy enjoyed time with his grandparents, we had our hurry-skurry adventures. I used to tell him, “Remember it doubly and trebly to make me FEEL your love.”
Olya Aman 