I have signed out from the church but not from the death. It is waiting somewhere. It will come with the click and everything will change att once. The solig will be abandoned for the stars. Is there anything better? I am still here, I can write with my solid finger on the tangentbord my solid thoughts with visible words. Well, I had my lessons: don't have another lord except for the God, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't lie, don't gluttony. I don't remember everything I shouldn't do. The thing is I shouldn't rebell, but I do. I am not that humble I should be. I was looking for one that was humble and joyful. I thought I had found one. "Here he is!" - I was amazed one day at a man who came to meet me. He didn't care for money, he didn't care for what mass media saying. He was different, but it turned out to be as usually as if I hadn't been a humble child for my Father. He gave me again two ways: one is to stay at home in my country with my son, friends, relatives, the other one was to go out in the world to see what was hiding behind the boarders veil. Yes, the curiosity killed the cat.
Як кажуць, там дзе нарадзiуся, там i згадзiуся. But the choice was mine. Who'd have thought that one day it would turn out to be the luckiest decision ever?
The troubles sneak like snakes. The first was when I had got married, then I left my husband. I dared. My son was 14 by that time. He couldn't understand. After so many years of solitude I started to look after him who would be my man for a partnership and familylike life. Late. As my auntie said one day when I was still young: "It's better to chock up with one repentant." She ment that the other one will be the same. I was destined to make mistakes as all of us, people, do. The glimpse of luck appeared in the air for a little while and disappeared as it used to.
The years later I went to Sweden. In my bagage was nothing but the memory of the racist attitude, cruelty, my paralised after the stroke second husband, hospitals and medical centres, no pension, no money att all. I was asked to leave my school where I spent the best years in my life, from where I went to Great Britain with my students and where I organised all the afterclass activities like English Club with my American friends without being even paid for that. Late. Luckily I was rekommended to start at the nearby school. My luck? By that time my husband was already a cripple, but I went on with what I had had. Not much in my hands. My mom was alive at least and she asked me to come to eat with her sometimes. I understand that she loved me as the nearest person to her.
One day her last summer I was with her in the summer house. We were just two of us. She asked me to pray with her. As it was so unusual and really strange for we had never talked about God or about the way to pray, I became aware of the death. It was near her.
I have never thought of my mom as a sentimental woman. She was always kind to people, but her job as a chef at the restaurant gave me no chance to be near her. I haven't seen her crying, just once when my grandmother went away. First time at her funerals when all the 9 siblings gathered together, I saw them crying.
That last summer with her, just two weeks, left me no hope for her presence. She asked me kindly to bury her near her aunty and uncle and nothing else special was said except for the prayer at the graveyard. One thing she left me as a gift: she said to me the words I had always been waiting to hear from my parents "I am so proud of you." These words will be burning in my heart for the rest of my days. Why so late? Why not before? And thank you for your love to me. Is that the sense of the whole life to say goodbye and forgive me in that very kind way?
A year before she left me I left my second husband as I couldn't continue anymore with his medicin, visits to the doctors, my son got into the hospital and was near to death. My relatives helped me to find him money for operation in Poland. I myself was near to breakdown. Life turned to me with it's better side when I left behind me all the funerals and hospitals. I went to Sweden.
As soon I arrived in july I was introduced to the whole family, to his friends, neighbours, the whole comunity. I came with the hope that my church will not leave me alone if something happened but I hadn't thought about it at that time. I was happy. Really happy. I escaped from the stinky air where I was limited from all the sides by the sircumstanses I had never thought to come in my life but as it was said: don't count out a prison cell, a begging bowl may come as well. We are not protected, we are naked and vulnerable people. Think about it next time you jump into the cold waters of your own lonely life.
The last two years after my mother's passing away, I was in the air. It seems like the earth had gone under my feet. Nothing appeared to be stable and solid, no sholder to lean on except for the God. Before my dearest mother went away she helped me to buy a little flat in neighbouhood. Well done, my angel. Thouthands of thanks for that. Beside this acquisition nothing was easy and proper. It was a stagnation period in my life: serching for a jobb and money to live for, working as an apprentist to a shoemaker, spending money for a business in hope to get some profit, but it wasn't the case. Nothing was clear in my head. Nothing was as before. I have lost the best part of me, my mom.
I do remember that after I had been working with the orphans and my former studets from that outstanding school which had used my ability to organize and to lead for its own best, I fell into this hell. Two years standing up for myself and my son. Interesting observation: both the worst of my students and the best came to that unfortunate school. The worst and the cruelest gang locked me in the classroom once so I didn't know what would they do with me. Nothing happened to my luck, but that was the warning that the next time they would do something if I am not agreeable and give them the grades they want. The principal was on their side. Bustards. Those who would love to read this opus to the end would be probably bored with all the gloomy circumstanses described in the rather inconsequent flow. Nevertheless. I would like to mention the best students in this part, together with the worst, in one key. I have never thought of the children as pragmatic creatures. It was me who was naive, not them. Two nice-looking girls decided to get better grades and were not cirtain if they could manage in their very promising school, so they quited from there and came instead to me, the outsider in the poor circumstances. Of cource they and their parents were cirtain of their right choice. Who at the end graded them? Not me. It was another teacher that was eager to teach them privately. Olga Mihailovna. Well, I couldn't do more than I did at school, just go there every day and meet my students. There were some other classes that I enjoyed teaching. One can say 'Per aspera ad astra'. As a heavy weight on my ankles my second husband was in my care and I visited my parents sometimes, very seldom though, as I was working as a horse at school and after school for little penny for private lessons. That was still the luckiest time in my life. I wasn't aware of the day when I would start the shoemake's aprentice and my partner would steal money from the workshop. Luckily I have found it very quickly and quited the job. What was that? A lesson?
I started looking for a job, but my unemployment obliged me to work as a street cleaner in the zoo, the worker at the veggies plant where all the drunkers, asocial elements sorted out the carrots, potatoe and beetroots. There I met Diana, a young woman who was obviously misshandled. We were usually sitting together on the way to the potatoe fields. She was rather silent and calm. Me too. There wasn't anything to talk about with the rest of the passangers either: they were dressed so poor and so primitive in their language, with hoarse voices ruined through excessive drinking and smoking. I believed I had got into the gulag number 2 where we were placed together with the gang members. Diana wasn't of their kind. She murmured something about Atlanta and the language the Atlanters left for their descendants which our precious companions in the bus were using in its best meaning. So went we some mornings together: Diana, me and our ascort with described features.
