My mother’s stories
chapter 13
The last visit to the village
Long after my mother left Bushkiria, her two cousins kept visiting her
mother every summer, living in her shabby hut and devouring a lot of food at
her expense, as my mother used to tell me with irritation. She, however, was as
firm as her word and visited her village only once since she left it at the
age of 21. It was 31 years later after she learnt that her mother had had
serious problems with her health.
So she went to her simultaneously hateful and beloved village to look
after her mother. To a local nurse’s surprise a big unhealing wound on her
patient’s buttock began to skin over under my mother’s care. The secret was
simple – she just changed spirit lotion and bandages twice a day instead of
three times a week as local medicine prescribed. That wound was a result of
numerous injections that the old woman had been so eager to have. My mother was
sure the main cause of her mother’s poor state was her obsession with
medicines. The old woman replenished her enormous supply of remedies every time
she heard that some pills or mixtures had helped to someone. So without a
second thought my mother burnt it all and continued with her simple treatment.
In a month her mother recovered enough to be able to travel to Odessa
We never liked each other with my grandmother but it’s a relief for me
to remember that she really got attached to my little children. Even if she
began to attract them just to tease my mother, her feelings for them became
undoubtedly sincere. She was at her younger daughter’s flat when she got worse
and on her last day she was waiting for those two little ones to come. We
didn’t come for some reason and I really regret it. Yet it’s some comfort for
me to know that her two little great-grandchildren gave her a bit of true love
which she had been desperate to find all her life but never managed to. I was
told that on her last day my grandmother regretted she hadn’t followed her
elder daughter’s advice. We will never learn what she really meant. Was it
about her daughter’s advice in general or about giving up medicines? Or was it
maybe about her inclination to lend everything to everybody or about not having
affairs with married men? I’d like to believe that she regretted they hadn’t
allowed themselves to love and support each other. It’s so sad that such
understanding often comes too late when you don’t have enough time to change
anything in your life. Yet, I am not sure my grandmother would have liked to
change something if she had been full of energy again and had years and years
to waste before her. And isn’t it most of people’s attitude to their lives?
I could finish my narration with this slightly depressing reflection if
I didn’t like my stories to end on more optimistic note. Maybe it’s just the
weather with its dull raining and the darkest time of year that has caused this
mood. In early winter I always feel like that – as if the spring is far away.
But in three months it will definitely come. So I must continue my work in
spite of the season and all the whims of the weather as I have a lot of things
to tell about. My grandfather, for instance, who was annihilated by Stalin’s
repressive machine, when my mother was only seven. He had a bright personality
and left a deep trace in my mother’s mind. Or my great-grandmother, who could
make home-spun fabric and a lot of other amazing things. And, of course, my
favourite aunt, my mother’s younger sister Zina, who started working at the
machine building plant when she was only 15.
To be continued…
(c) Anna Shevchenko
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