CHAPTER 11. OUR PARENTS

MARIA, our parent, compared to the other her two sisters and brother, was the most industrious of all as she chose her residence place in a bigger city BRYANSK than her siblings’ PJCHEP.
MARIA created the favorable conditions for studies for her husbands BORIS, NICKOLAY, and her children.
Her principle ” Rely on yourself but not on husband” we, her kids, kept sacridly and followed it in our whole lives. We are always in debt before our parents because they did so much for us. This is the song about below.
Listen to the song:

My brother and I completed the higher education at the Institutes, got the Diplomas. EMMA and Nickolay finished the BRYANSK Building College at the evening time, getting the Diplomas about the Technical Medium-Level Education.
The third srrong quality of MARIA’s character was the loyalty to the children and the family, always ready to help at any difficult minute of their lives.Even her niece PENYUKOVA ZINA while she stuck in a very hard financial problem in Leningrad where she studied at that time, reached not her own mother POLINA but her aunt MARIA about the urgent help. And MARIA did it. She helped ZINA. Later I asked Zina “Why did you do that what you did?” She explained that her aunt MARIA is a smart, intelligent woman, and she relied on her.
Meanwhile all the children of MARIA grew up, started their own families. They lived apart from her except EMMA who lived in the same apartment building, two entrances farther.
Most of all her heart was aching for the youngest son GENA and the oldest daughter EMMA.
Dying on that memorable day of 1985 , MARIA kept open her eyes, following every step of EMMA’s movements. “Where is GENNADIY?” she asked many times. And then her eyes closed for good.
GENNADIY showed up later without seeing his mother, so unconditionally loved him, when she was alive.
The other big pain and love of her life was EMMA. First of all when EMMA was wounded during the World War II, and second of all, when EMMA with her bad heart condition was not allowed by doctors to deliver a child. But EMMA did. Her new born girl MARINA and her father Viktor Detkov were completely at her 24/7 care, including feeding, cooking meals, cleaning etc. what they need for survival. MARIA had her own responsibilities in her family too. We all helped our parents as we could. It lasted approxamately one year: struggle for Emma’s life.
This a feat of MARIA, isn’t it? Definitely, yes.
Once I remember, I asked our mother :”WHY do you consider the help to GENA and EMMA but me?” “I’am a single mother, living without husband and raising my daughter by myself.”
That’s what she said:” You’re strong. You can manage your life independantly”.
For a long time I thought over her words. Perhaps, she is right, she is a PARENT and a good PARENT and sees everything from the distance. And from the distance it is always clearer to see things.
Watch our parents’ favourite show “Goluboy Ogonyok”:

(to be continued)