Her Story
Her life was not a poem
But the nails that hold a house together.
Her young years are shrouded in mystery.
There are no old faded photographs
Of a young beautiful face,
She told no family stories.
Peasant life in the Taiga, God,
And a WWII veteran for a husband
Was all she knew.
She never had a taste of candy,
But she baked the sweetest pies
With wild berries.
Pleasure was not in her vocabulary,
Living in Taiga did not provide for pleasures.
True joy you would see on her face
When family, children, and grandchildren visited from far away.
That joy was always mixed with tears
Of knowing that they will leave soon again.
Life has thrown us in all different directions
But she stayed,
In the family home,
In that small, sleepy village
Huddled between a river and the cedars of Taiga.
And we knew
That when we needed
To get away from our busy city lives
She will always be there,
With warm hearth, fish pies,
And serenity of austere nature
Right outside the front door,
All topped with unassuming grandmotherly love.
She always waited for us,
Like a candle lit in the window
To guide us back home
Through storms, harsh winters
And dreary starless nights.
A corner stone of the family,
Even the thought of our Baba Manya
Brought a calmness to our hearts.
As long as she lived, in her old house,
Keeping us in her daily prayers,
Everything was okay in the world.
She passed away the same way she lived,
Quietly.
In the middle of winter.
God has taken her in time
To celebrate Christmas at His House,
Her body resting peacefully
Under a fresh blanket of snow.
A distinctly ordinary life,
Just an old little lady to the rest,
Like so many grandmothers gracing this Earth,
She was ours.
©Olga Gavrilovskiy 2022
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