Mom's last lesson. Uninvented story Nikolay Karpin
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Title: Mom's last lesson. Uninvented story
About the book “Mom’s Last Lesson. An uninvented story" Nikolai Karpin
Alas, old age awaits us all. The documentary story “Mom’s Last Lesson” contains a unique experience on how to support the last days of a loved one who is losing memory and at the same time not lose yourself.
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Mom's last lesson
Uninvented story
Nikolai Ivanovich Karpin
Circumstances do not create a person. They simply reveal it to themselves.
Greek philosopher Epictetus
© Nikolay Ivanovich Karpin, 2015
Corrector Tatiana Isakova
Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero
Why did I decide to write about my mother's last days?
Old age seemed to me beautiful and wise.
And now, before my eyes, my own mother, whom I thought I knew almost better than herself, is fading away.
Reality crossed out the wildest ideas. The mental suffering that I and my family experienced during everyday communication with a loved one is difficult to rethink.
In the legends of many peoples of the world, younger, and therefore more viable people push their old people off a cliff, drown them in water, kill them on the head with a club, and carry them alive on splints into the forest; in a word, get rid of them by all means. It turns out that the old, powerless man has always been a burden to the family and clan.
The subtle expert on the human soul, Michel Montaigne, in his book “Experiences” included deceit, pretense, greed, gluttony, thievery, and sloppiness among the vices of old age.
After everything that happened before my eyes, it’s hard to disagree with him, and you shouldn’t delude yourself about your own old age. This is the first thing.
It seemed to me that a person who has lived to a ripe old age eventually gets tired of life and at the last stage Death is his desired Guest. No and no again!
Man is a Child of Nature, he passionately clings to life until his last breath, unless, of course, his breath is poisoned by wine fumes, drugs, or severe mental disorders. This is how our essence is structured. There is nothing unnatural about that. It is precisely in the attempt to linger in this world that the healthy beginning of MAN is laid.
And I also really want to strengthen the memory of my mother. After all, “where there is memory, there is no death.” In my memoirs, put her closest friends Nastya Silina and Raya Shishalova next to my mother. Mom never broke off her friendship with them, and mom missed them for the rest of her life, because her friends died much earlier. She often thought about them, especially in the last days of her life.
These last few years have no right to cast a shadow on my mother’s life, full of courageous actions and decisions. The trials that befell my mother would have been enough for more than one person. I will give just one example of maternal self-sacrifice and love. Back in 1988, having learned that her eldest son, who lived at that time in the city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), left the family, lived anywhere, became an alcoholic, the mother without hesitation rushed to save him. She found him, tore his son away from his criminal friends, and brought him home. Then, for 20 years until his death, she fed him, washed him, and forced him to work, in the hope that his eldest son would pull himself together.
Strong in spirit, the mother endured all the trials sent by Fate. It’s hard to imagine what she went through when she raised three sons alone, raised them on their feet, and then lost two of them. Tell me, what kind of mind would not be clouded after this? But even shortly before her death, in the glimmers of her memory, she always guessed not to harm her last son.
These few years of close communication with her forced me to rethink my past life. Does God exist in the world, as most people imagine him to be? I started asking myself this question. I don't know what to say. The state called the USSR raised its citizens to be atheists, and matter is primary for me. And yet some unsolved Universal Mind, some Phenomenon that determines our destinies, exists. So, at least it seemed to me.
I hope that the events described here and the experiences associated with them will serve the reader as a useful lesson in overcoming the difficulties that arise along the path of life.
Mom called. She was talking to Nina, I was at work. Nina said that my mother wished me a happy birthday. At first I was surprised. She was wrong by two months. For the first time, a mother forgot the date of birth of her youngest son. I could hardly hold back my tears at this thought. It turns out that even a mother’s memory can forget her children.
December
My youngest son and I were going to visit our mother in P-re, and at the same time go fishing there. I love winter fishing, especially on the Suna River. Along the way, we planned to pick up our older brother Alexander from the boarding house and leave him with his mother for the New Year. The two of them will have more and more fun together.
I promised this to my brother the last time we met. He also promised to cut his hair. Instead, they had to urgently organize a funeral. The boarding house reported by phone that Sasha had died. And my first thought was: “Poor mom! How will she cope with the death of her second son?
In the evening we brought the body to P-ro. None of my brother’s friends helped at the funeral; they didn’t even come to the grave to say goodbye to him. I remembered my mother’s “you don’t have friends, but drinking buddies.” Turned out to be right.
Sitting by the coffin, my mother cried all evening. At night I looked into the room. Huddled into a ball, she dozed near the coffin. I was afraid that her heart would stop. God has been merciful. In the morning my mother cried again. On Sunday afternoon, my brother was buried, and my mother began to confuse events. At times it seemed to her that her Sasha had gone out somewhere, but would soon return. Then the worry in her eyes was filled with sparkles of hope. The older brother was the ringleader from childhood and he was also a fighter. His mother was afraid for him all his life - and not in vain.
At 57 years old, my brother repeated several times:
“Bravado,” I thought. “First of all, not a single person in the world knows how long he has been given, and my brother does not look like a suicide.
That's what I thought then.
My brother died at his allotted 60 years, and from that day on it seems to me that in his choice he turned out to be stronger than God.
The day after the funeral, we visited Aunt Zina, my mother’s last friend from the first post-war years of resettlement to Karelia as part of the organizational recruitment. That's what mom wanted. Aunt Zina lived in a tiny house that I had never been to. Marvelous! She, a city dweller, moved to the village and kept a cow and chickens for a long time. When I knocked on the door and wanted to enter her house, a huge black dog suddenly jumped out of the slightly opened door onto the porch. He bared his fangs and growled angrily at me. I instinctively threw my hands forward, preparing to attack, but the dog rushed past and furiously attacked my mother, who was standing behind me. Not expecting an attack, my mother clumsily moved away from the evil creature. I had difficulty driving the dog away. Blood flowed from my mother’s hand. Confused, we entered Aunt Zina’s house. The smell of swill, which must have been prepared for cattle, filled my nose. I looked around. An unpainted wooden staircase with wide steps led to the attic, a kind of attic. The eldest daughter lived there, visiting Aunt Zina in the summer. A heavy smell and unkemptness reigned in the apartment. That's all I remember then. My mother's hand bothered me. There was no bandage in the house. Then I ran to the car for a first aid kit and bandaged her hand. Aunt Zina kept apologizing, then fussily took up her wallet:
- I want to buy something for tea.
But I said that we stopped for a minute, because we still need to get ready for the trip. I decided to take my mother to Petrozavodsk. Aunt Zina sat down on a chair. I told her about my brother’s death and funeral. He told me in detail because she knew him well. Having finished, he asked:
– Mom said that you are from Leningrad?
I couldn’t comprehend how a city person could become so attached to rural life.
“Yes, I am a native Leningrader,” she confirmed and began to tell: “I was 11 years old when the war began.” A few days after it started, dad came home to say goodbye. And soon he died somewhere near Luga. I don’t know where he is buried. During the first months of the war, my mother worked at the Krasnaya Zarya weaving factory. Then there was no more work and she was laid off. Bread was given on ration cards. The norm has all been cut. Our grandmother lived with us. The three of us began to receive 200 g of bread each.
Then they started bombing. At first we went down to the basement or, as they call it, to the bomb shelter, and then we stopped. We lived on the sixth floor. By the time you go down, the bombing will have stopped. The bombs did not hit our house, but the house opposite was completely destroyed. By then we were already weakened. At first, my grandmother cooked us some kind of stew from glue and mixed something into it. Then she fell ill. Once I was getting ready to go outside, my grandmother said: “Zina, stay with me.” I tell her: “I’m a grandmother now, I’ll be there soon.” I returned home, she was already dead. There was a market not far from us. We had good things. In order to somehow survive, my mother began to sell them at the market. One day two policemen took us away. They brought us to their place and told us not to see us here at the market again. This was some kind of sabotage, because they sold bread there, which could only be obtained in the store with cards, and they sold other products. When we returned home, my mother sat down on a chair and began to cry. She walked for some time, then fell ill, like a grandmother. This was in March. I remember the sun was already warm. It’s nice outside, and my girlfriend and I from our house decided to take a walk. The snow in some places has melted down to the asphalt. In one place there are even some small squares left on it for playing hopscotch. Let's jump on those cells. I jumped and couldn’t stay on my feet and fell. Then my friend started jumping and also fell. We were so weak. Hands are like twigs, the skin hangs all over. (Aunt Zina pulled back the sleeve of her knitted sweater, showing how her skin hung.) Then we went to the barn, behind which there was a house. Jews lived there before the war. The house is one-story wooden. Instead of a house there was a huge crater, like this one. (And Aunt Zina gestured around the space of her house.) A deep crater. And at the bottom of the funnel lay the head of a young girl with curly black hair. The head melted from under the snow. There were corpses piled up all around. They were eaten up. Out of hunger, people resorted to cannibalism. Only this was hidden. They said that some salted human meat in entire containers for future use. People carried out the dead and left them because they had no strength to drag them any further... That’s how it was then.
Circumstances do not create a person. They simply reveal it to themselves.
Greek philosopher Epictetus
© Nikolay Ivanovich Karpin, 2015
Corrector Tatiana Isakova
Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero
Why did I decide to write about my mother's last days?
Old age seemed to me beautiful and wise.
And now, before my eyes, my own mother, whom I thought I knew almost better than herself, is fading away.
Reality crossed out the wildest ideas. The mental suffering that I and my family experienced during everyday communication with a loved one is difficult to rethink.
In the legends of many peoples of the world, younger, and therefore more viable people push their old people off a cliff, drown them in water, kill them on the head with a club, and carry them alive on splints into the forest; in a word, get rid of them by all means. It turns out that the old, powerless man has always been a burden to the family and clan.
The subtle expert on the human soul, Michel Montaigne, in his book “Experiences” included deceit, pretense, greed, gluttony, thievery, and sloppiness among the vices of old age.
After everything that happened before my eyes, it’s hard to disagree with him, and you shouldn’t delude yourself about your own old age. This is the first thing.
It seemed to me that a person who has lived to a ripe old age eventually gets tired of life and at the last stage Death is his desired Guest. No and no again!
Man is a Child of Nature, he passionately clings to life until his last breath, unless, of course, his breath is poisoned by wine fumes, drugs, or severe mental disorders. This is how our essence is structured. There is nothing unnatural about that. It is precisely in the attempt to linger in this world that the healthy beginning of MAN is laid.
And I also really want to strengthen the memory of my mother. After all, “where there is memory, there is no death.” In my memoirs, put her closest friends Nastya Silina and Raya Shishalova next to my mother. Mom never broke off her friendship with them, and mom missed them for the rest of her life, because her friends died much earlier. She often thought about them, especially in the last days of her life.
These last few years have no right to cast a shadow on my mother’s life, full of courageous actions and decisions. The trials that befell my mother would have been enough for more than one person. I will give just one example of maternal self-sacrifice and love. Back in 1988, having learned that her eldest son, who lived at that time in the city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), left the family, lived anywhere, became an alcoholic, the mother without hesitation rushed to save him. She found him, tore his son away from his criminal friends, and brought him home. Then, for 20 years until his death, she fed him, washed him, and forced him to work, in the hope that his eldest son would pull himself together.
Strong in spirit, the mother endured all the trials sent by Fate. It’s hard to imagine what she went through when she raised three sons alone, raised them on their feet, and then lost two of them. Tell me, what kind of mind would not be clouded after this? But even shortly before her death, in the glimmers of her memory, she always guessed not to harm her last son.
These few years of close communication with her forced me to rethink my past life. Does God exist in the world, as most people imagine him to be? I started asking myself this question. I don't know what to say. The state called the USSR raised its citizens to be atheists, and matter is primary for me. And yet some unsolved Universal Mind, some Phenomenon that determines our destinies, exists. So, at least it seemed to me.
I hope that the events described here and the experiences associated with them will serve the reader as a useful lesson in overcoming the difficulties that arise along the path of life.
Mom called. She was talking to Nina, I was at work. Nina said that my mother wished me a happy birthday. At first I was surprised. She was wrong by two months. For the first time, a mother forgot the date of birth of her youngest son. I could hardly hold back my tears at this thought. It turns out that even a mother’s memory can forget her children.
December
My youngest son and I were going to visit our mother in P-re, and at the same time go fishing there. I love winter fishing, especially on the Suna River. Along the way, we planned to pick up our older brother Alexander from the boarding house and leave him with his mother for the New Year. The two of them will have more and more fun together.
I promised this to my brother the last time we met. He also promised to cut his hair. Instead, they had to urgently organize a funeral. The boarding house reported by phone that Sasha had died. And my first thought was: “Poor mom! How will she cope with the death of her second son?
In the evening we brought the body to P-ro. None of my brother’s friends helped at the funeral; they didn’t even come to the grave to say goodbye to him. I remembered my mother’s “you don’t have friends, but drinking buddies.” Turned out to be right.
Sitting by the coffin, my mother cried all evening. At night I looked into the room. Huddled into a ball, she dozed near the coffin. I was afraid that her heart would stop. God has been merciful. In the morning my mother cried again. On Sunday afternoon, my brother was buried, and my mother began to confuse events. At times it seemed to her that her Sasha had gone out somewhere, but would soon return. Then the worry in her eyes was filled with sparkles of hope. The older brother was the ringleader from childhood and he was also a fighter. His mother was afraid for him all his life - and not in vain.
At 57 years old, my brother repeated several times:
“Bravado,” I thought. “First of all, not a single person in the world knows how long he has been given, and my brother does not look like a suicide.
That's what I thought then.
My brother died at his allotted 60 years, and from that day on it seems to me that in his choice he turned out to be stronger than God.
The day after the funeral, we visited Aunt Zina, my mother’s last friend from the first post-war years of resettlement to Karelia as part of the organizational recruitment. That's what mom wanted. Aunt Zina lived in a tiny house that I had never been to. Marvelous! She, a city dweller, moved to the village and kept a cow and chickens for a long time. When I knocked on the door and wanted to enter her house, a huge black dog suddenly jumped out of the slightly opened door onto the porch. He bared his fangs and growled angrily at me. I instinctively threw my hands forward, preparing to attack, but the dog rushed past and furiously attacked my mother, who was standing behind me. Not expecting an attack, my mother clumsily moved away from the evil creature. I had difficulty driving the dog away. Blood flowed from my mother’s hand. Confused, we entered Aunt Zina’s house. The smell of swill, which must have been prepared for cattle, filled my nose. I looked around. An unpainted wooden staircase with wide steps led to the attic, a kind of attic. The eldest daughter lived there, visiting Aunt Zina in the summer. A heavy smell and unkemptness reigned in the apartment. That's all I remember then. My mother's hand bothered me. There was no bandage in the house. Then I ran to the car for a first aid kit and bandaged her hand. Aunt Zina kept apologizing, then fussily took up her wallet:
- I want to buy something for tea.
But I said that we stopped for a minute, because we still need to get ready for the trip. I decided to take my mother to Petrozavodsk. Aunt Zina sat down on a chair. I told her about my brother’s death and funeral. He told me in detail because she knew him well. Having finished, he asked:
– Mom said that you are from Leningrad?
I couldn’t comprehend how a city person could become so attached to rural life.
“Yes, I am a native Leningrader,” she confirmed and began to tell: “I was 11 years old when the war began.” A few days after it started, dad came home to say goodbye. And soon he died somewhere near Luga. I don’t know where he is buried. During the first months of the war, my mother worked at the Krasnaya Zarya weaving factory. Then there was no more work and she was laid off. Bread was given on ration cards. The norm has all been cut. Our grandmother lived with us. The three of us began to receive 200 g of bread each.
Alas, old age awaits us all. The documentary story “Mom’s Last Lesson” contains a unique experience on how to support the last days of a loved one who is losing memory and at the same time not lose yourself.
* * *
The given introductory fragment of the book Mom's last lesson. An uninvented story (N. I. Karpin) provided by our book partner - the company liters.
Circumstances do not create a person. They simply reveal it to themselves.
Greek philosopher Epictetus© Nikolay Ivanovich Karpin, 2015
Corrector Tatiana Isakova
Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero
Why did I decide to write about my mother's last days?
Old age seemed to me beautiful and wise.
And now, before my eyes, my own mother, whom I thought I knew almost better than herself, is fading away.
Reality crossed out the wildest ideas. The mental suffering that I and my family experienced during everyday communication with a loved one is difficult to rethink.
In the legends of many peoples of the world, younger, and therefore more viable people push their old people off a cliff, drown them in water, kill them on the head with a club, and carry them alive on splints into the forest; in a word, get rid of them by all means. It turns out that the old, powerless man has always been a burden to the family and clan.
The subtle expert on the human soul, Michel Montaigne, in his book “Experiences” included deceit, pretense, greed, gluttony, thievery, and sloppiness among the vices of old age.
After everything that happened before my eyes, it’s hard to disagree with him, and you shouldn’t delude yourself about your own old age. This is the first thing.
It seemed to me that a person who has lived to a ripe old age eventually gets tired of life and at the last stage Death is his desired Guest. No and no again!
Man is a Child of Nature, he passionately clings to life until his last breath, unless, of course, his breath is poisoned by wine fumes, drugs, or severe mental disorders. This is how our essence is structured. There is nothing unnatural about that. It is precisely in the attempt to linger in this world that the healthy beginning of MAN is laid.
And I also really want to strengthen the memory of my mother. After all, “where there is memory, there is no death.” In my memoirs, put her closest friends Nastya Silina and Raya Shishalova next to my mother. Mom never broke off her friendship with them, and mom missed them for the rest of her life, because her friends died much earlier. She often thought about them, especially in the last days of her life.
These last few years have no right to cast a shadow on my mother’s life, full of courageous actions and decisions. The trials that befell my mother would have been enough for more than one person. I will give just one example of maternal self-sacrifice and love. Back in 1988, having learned that her eldest son, who lived at that time in the city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), left the family, lived anywhere, became an alcoholic, the mother without hesitation rushed to save him. She found him, tore his son away from his criminal friends, and brought him home. Then, for 20 years until his death, she fed him, washed him, and forced him to work, in the hope that his eldest son would pull himself together.
Strong in spirit, the mother endured all the trials sent by Fate. It’s hard to imagine what she went through when she raised three sons alone, raised them on their feet, and then lost two of them. Tell me, what kind of mind would not be clouded after this? But even shortly before her death, in the glimmers of her memory, she always guessed not to harm her last son.
These few years of close communication with her forced me to rethink my past life. Does God exist in the world, as most people imagine him to be? I started asking myself this question. I don't know what to say. The state called the USSR raised its citizens to be atheists, and matter is primary for me. And yet some unsolved Universal Mind, some Phenomenon that determines our destinies, exists. So, at least it seemed to me.
I hope that the events described here and the experiences associated with them will serve the reader as a useful lesson in overcoming the difficulties that arise along the path of life.
