English Audio Request

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a great honor to stand before you all, because today I want to tell you about a person we all are familiar with. She is not so young, she is kind and warm, she can cook a meal out of nothing and she will always stand by your side and protect you, sometimes even more rigorously than your parents. Who am I talking about? About my grandmother. Of course, you don’t know my grandmother and I don’t know yours, but I think many people have the same associations hearing one of the best words people have ever coined. Grandmother. Glorious mother. Great mother.
I had the best grandmother a child can dream of. She was kind and patient, she liked knitting, embroidering and working in the garden. I guess some of you would recognize your own grandmother in these words. She was ever so perfect. I remember waking up in a sunlit room, a kettle boiling like it was going to explode ‘til kingdom come, and me opening the inner door of our village house and screaming with all my lungs, - :“Granny! Granny!”. I was so afraid to turn the electric stove off so I screamed and screamed, desperately, “Granny! Granny!”. The kettle boiled and boiled, the water running out of it, I was too little to pray, I didn’t dream of Santa Claus, or Superman, or some other hero to come and rescue me. Grandma was so far away, somewhere in the garden, 50, 100 meters away from the house, but she heard my voice, sensed it somewhere deep in her heart. She always came, turned the scary kettle off, and we drank a magnificent morning cup of tea. She was my superhero.
And she was a superhero for all of us. Have you ever thought of how such a fragile, small woman can manage the whole household, keep her garden the most beautiful and with the most flowers in the neighborhood, cook for a big family, keep the house clean and shiny and play with you and be your best friend all at once? Sometimes I thought that she was a fairy and had some kind of a magic wand, otherwise I had no idea how she managed to cope with all the problems and be the best at everything she did. But now I know – she didn’t have any super powers, she was not a supernatural creature. She was a woman who had a hard life and wished her children and grandchildren would never repeat her path.
She was born in a family with 11 children, 5 of which died before the age of 3. She lived in a village, her family was poor, but still she did the best to help her parents, sisters and brother. Her school was kilometers away from home and every morning, summer or winter, she woke up before the sun threw up its first rays and walked through the dark forest where there were bears and wolves. When she grew up she entered the Medical Academy and became a doctor. She wanted to help people, to cure diseases, though her own disease was of the kind nobody could cure. I remember the day when the Earth stood still – the day when I first knew that my lovely, wonderful and absolutely not supernatural granny had a cancer.
Doctors told us that she wouldn’t make it, the cancer cells had spread to the point at which nobody could survive. Yes, nobody could, but she did. Having lived through the Great Patriotic War, poverty and her own misery, she fought cancer as well, fought it till the end, and despite the predictions of the doctors she lived 4 more years before she passed away. I was twelve. And now I want to pay tribute to my grandmother and all grandmothers of present, future and past for their kindness, patience and love. I know that I would never have become the person I am if it were not for my grandmother, my superhero who taught me by her own example how to be brave no matter what. A woman of so much courage, will and vivacity who will forever live inside of me, deep down my heart until it stops beating. And maybe even after.