Et si tu n’existais pas,
Dis-moi pourquoi j’existerais ?
Pour traîner dans un monde sans toi,
Sans espoir et sans regrets.
I am back from my long walk. Hmm, they usually help. This time it didn’t. In fact, it made it so much worse, that I got a terrible migraine. I’m lying with the light off on my bed, typing with my eyes almost closed. I was walking and feeling angry. I walked by Brian’s house, and saw his dog – a mini-brown-dachshund, with the name of Lady-Bug. She was lying in the dirt, almost asleep, in the dachshund’s favorite pose – like a “kravai”, shaping a circle. She felt my presence and looked in my eyes. I looked into her deep, wet, brown eyes. She felt my anger. The little warm creature got up, and walked up to me. Through the wire net, she showed her little face and liked my palm. Then she liked the other one. She was so passionate, just like Gabi. Her eyes and her kisses were simply killing me, she was just…everything…I started crying, got up and looked at her. She took the pose of a proud female-dachshund, looking at someone with dignity and affection, with curiosity, but also begging indirectly- “don’t leave me”. I walked away, looking at her as if I was looking at a ghost, tears steaming down my face. We were looking at each other through the wire net, just like Gabi and I used to do in Ahtopol, when I would leave the house to go to the beach or to the quay.
I cried for a long time. I was so angry, walking on the streets as if I am about to go find some ex boyfriend and just give him the lesson of his life…Haha, I am actually never that angry. Really, it’s true – anger is non-existent in my life because I could Always control it. But this time, I couldn’t. I feel so helpless; there is nothing that could be done. And it hurts so much…Anger is the right word. I am so angry. So angry. How can He possibly want to take her away from me? How can He want to rid the world of this wonderful person? No, this is a mistake. It is a mistake. They all were. This post is going to sound like a chapter from “100 Years of Solitude”, as if Gabriel Garcia Marquez guessed my password and logged in to write a little story, not about the village of Macondo….but this time based on a true story.
Once upon a time…
There lived a simple village woman, who had 3 daughters. They lived poorly, but were very united and loved each other. The sisters had to walk to school through the forest miles and miles every day; on the way back it was dark, and sometimes they met wolves and bears. But they were really good students, and good girls. They helped their mom make their clothes, bake bread, plough the field and take care of the crops. Every morning their mom would give them fresh made cheese and kashkaval in home-made butter between two big slices of the just made warm bread, with pepper on them… The father refused to support the family and abandoned them before the girls finished school. The 4 women left their house, their animals, their trees and seeds, and went to live in the big city. The mother bought a village house near the capitol, in Korilo mountain and they would go there on the weekends – the rest of the time they lived in an apartment and the sisters went to a specialized Russian school in the capitol. Two of the sisters married quickly, both very unhappily – but it was the only way the could survive at this time. One of them, who became a vet, was promised to someone whom she didn’t love, and since she refused to marry him, she was bound to go out and marry the first man she met on the street. And so she did – she married lieutenant Vasko and had 2 children with him. The second one, who was a news reporter, was madly in love with a man, whom the mother did not approve of. She was forbidden to marry him. Instead, she married a man who made her very unhappy and divorced her quickly. The third daughter, my grandmother, continued her education to Russian philology. She was sent to teach in some village, where she met my grandfather – a poor orphan, working as an artist, doing the first fluorescent advertisements in the capitol. He was claimed a “foe” of the country, since he illegally tried to escape the boarder (and socialism) at age 18. He was self-educated, lived in libraries for a long time – there was not a book he had not read. Books were his life. They fell madly in love, but my grandmother was forbidden to marry him since he was not a promising provider for a wife and a family. They married in secret in a small church, with no rings or any kind of fanciness. My grandmother worked very hard – she gave private lessons, did school and university teaching. She was able to save money to buy a piano and a small summerhouse in Ahtopol, at the Black Sea. She and my grandfather would go there with their kids every summer. After a report that said he had talked against the communist government, my grandfather was sent to a working camp for a while, where he was treated like a dog slave. The days he wasn’t worked almost to death, he was kept in chains without any food or shelter. Once he asked for some water and was “given” a bucket of water in a way that broke all his front teeth and nose. After coming back, he always visited prisoners and sometimes sheltered homeless people at his home, gave money to starving strangers, and never left a soul that he knew to be hungry or lonely. Though they lived in a 2 room duplex (in communism you couldn’t just buy an apartment or even chose where to live. instead the government GAVE you and ORDERED you where to live), they had families who had nowhere to go live with them. My grandmother’s older sister (the divorced one) with her son lived with them. My grandfather was a Great father, a Great husband, a great man of knowledge, an adored by everyone friend, a man of honesty and goodness. He died at age 46, from a doctor’s mistake. My grandmother was left a widow, to support her 2 daughters, who were both now in college. The 3 women thought all of them were going to die from sorrow but were holding on to each other. My grandmother was fed with a spoon in the mouth and given showers by her sisters who tried to help the situation. The older daughter of my grandmother got marred to a man who had sympathy and saved her from her sorrow after her father’s death. She divorced him after a month. Both daughters finished college, with 2 degrees – one with an English philology and a Russian philology, and the other with a Psychology Masters and a Russian philology.
My mother met my dad and married him. Four years later my dad’s father died – he was hit by a car in London (he was a star and a man of fame, but nevertheless, as my other grandmother puts it, naïve enough not to look in 2 directions when crossing a street. My grandma always told me she was never able to forgive him his stupidity which led to him leaving her forever) I was growing up with 2 parents grieving for their fathers. I had 2 immediate grandmothers, and 4 other grandmothers (the sisters of my grandmothers are weirdly also called grandmothers, but they’re intermediate) So, I had 6 grandmothers. 3 on my mom’s side, and 3 on my dad’s side. My parents always thought they’d substitute the absence of a grandfather. My mother’s mom and my father’s mom are the 2 creatures closest to me. My mother’s mom, the one I started the story with, I consider my true mother – she was the one that raised me and gave me everything I have. She really is the one that has shaped my character, made me who I am – I have not yet found a better teacher, a better parent, a better person, a better cook, a better advisor, a more loving and devoted human being, a more patient listener, a better friend, a better example of a woman… I love her so much, I cannot put it in words. She is everything to me. I woe her more than a Universe… She is the most beautiful woman, if she only knew how much I admire everything she has done in her life, and everything she has done for the people she loves – for her husband, her daughters, for her sisters, for her grandchildren, for me…I admire her will, her spirit, she is so strong. Nothing led her down, ever. If she only knew how much I admire her strength…
So, first 3 of my grandmothers died, on my dad’s side. None of them were the 2 closest grandmothers. I still have those 2 around. But…
My favorite grandmother’s (on my mom’s side) older sister got diagnosed with cancer. There was almost no one to take care of her, and so my grandmother devoted herself to that. Her sister died 3 months after being diagnosed. Then we left her too, and came to live in America ( notice that this story is not about my family, but about my mom’s mother, I am skipping any stories of my parents and siblings, therefore reasons of why we’re here and such). Four months later, her other sister dies, also of cancer. The day she dies, my grandmother has a surgery, for cancer. She is told that she is fine and will be if she survives the next 2 years. This is the 3rd year. My grandmother has a younger half- brother, with the pseudonym of Gogo (her father who had abandoned them had another son who became very very close to my family and his 3 half-sisters, he took care of the 2 that died). In the second year after her surgery, she was with us, in America, visiting. Her brother had been diagnosed with cancer a month ago. 3 days after she went back, her brother died. He had just married a wonderful woman and was only 44 years old. My cheerful and loving uncle Gogo is no longer around.
What I don’t find fair, is that now it is her turn. My story doesn’t have an ending yet. She made it the 2 years, but she now has metastasis. The doctors say it’s very bad and helpless. They want to put her on chemo, but say there is no point. Today she was supposed to get inhospitalized. We couldn’t reach my aunt’s family over the phone (my grandmother lives with them), but I wrote to my cousin Lina to tell us what’s going on. My grandmother lives with my aunt (her younger daughter) and my uncle, as well as my first cousins, Lina and Ani. My uncle got diagnosed with cancer a while ago. Then recently he almost died from his newly discovered SVERE diabetes, got in hospitalized and now he takes insulin shots 4 times a day in order to stay alive. My aunt is also very sick. They don’t know what’s wrong with her yet, but her brain isn’t getting enough blood and therefore she has problems with walking and her head hurts all the time. My other grandmother on my dad’s side is sick too. She is a doctor, an oncologist, and won’t ever tell us what’s wrong with her. “High blood pressure, high fever, just feeling tired and laying in bed. I’m fine, I’m taking some pills, don’t worry about me. ” All of that I find the other day. I lived for such a long time, thinking that my 2 grandmothers, my aunt and my uncle were completely healthy. I was not told about my uncle’s diabetes, my aunt’s problems and my grandmothers metastasis, because the tradition says “spare the children, save them from sorrow, they’ll have enough in their lives”. That is why I find out about my grandmother’s death a week after her funeral, on the phone by a stranger. Spare me the sad news, it is better to see it in the paper. It is so idiotic….
And I am here, in America. Completely healthy (if we exclude the several colds I’ve had these last 3 months, I have not gotten sick even once here), happy with my life, with my friends, with my family, with everything I have. Why do those good people back there deserve such pains? What have they done? They were just born Bulgarian. A joke of destiny.
I just pray to god she stays with us some more. She deserves it. I know she is in pain…But I also know that she does not want to accept the fact that she is dying. The other day she turned in her bed while sleeping and that broke her rib. She is not supposed to do Anything because even a sneeze can break all her bones and get the cancer spread everywhere else in the body. But she says she wants to live normally and they can’t stop her. I understand that. She has Always been an active woman, she can’t stay even a MINUTE without doing something, she beats herself up and lives the day to its full– this is a woman that can Never say she is bored – it would be her greatest shame. She is always doing something useful, practical, good for someone she loves or for the family – her Only thought is to serve the people she loves, to be useful, to help…she’d be sowing, painting the windows or the small chairs, cooking, cleaning, reading a story, writing a poem, comforting a crying grandchild, doing anything that would make someone feel better, always taking care of everyone in any way she can…. always always making the family One Whole, uniting us with her love – wherever she is, this is Home for me… she is the symbol of love.
She wants to go to Korilo every weekend, and to Ahtopol. Although she knows she shouldn’t, she went to Korilo last weekend and then called to tell my mother to tell me that my cherry tree has again given One Cherry this year, just like 3 summers ago when I was there with her picking the strawberries and the grapes. She also told my mom to tell Stunji that her peach tree has a bunch of peaches this year. So all is good – when we were planting the cherry and the peach tree, she was telling us that this is all she wants from life – to leave life behind her. She had bought these 2 trees for my sister and I, and she wanted them to have fruits every year. “This is Bani’s cherry tree, and one day she will be painting and eating its delicious fruits.” My grandmother always told me how close she feels to the earth and how much she enjoys working it – planting, ploughing, picking,…It gave her the meaning of existence, and the sweetest satisfaction. That is why she will not stop being active and will break a bone and die soon after. She sounds happy on the phone, she has hope, her spirits are high… everyone hopes.
I am not religious, but I do like to light a candle every once in a while. Its flame lights the hope and keeps me warm till the next candle.
Et si tu n’existais pas,
Dis-moi pourquoi j’existerais ?
Joe Dassin – Et si tu n’existais pas :
And if you did not exist,
Say to me why I would exist?
To trail in a world without you,
Without hope and regrets.
And if you did not exist,
I would try to invent the love,
As a painter who sees under his fingers
To be born colors from the day.
And which does not return from there.
And if you did not exist,
Say to me for whom I would exist?
The busy ones deadened in my arms
That I would never like.
And if you did not exist,
I would be only one point moreover
In this world which comes and which go,
I would feel lost,
I would need you.
And if you did not exist,
Say to me how I would exist?
I could make pretence be me,
But I would not be true.
And if you did not exist,
I believe that I would have found it,
The secrecy of the life, it why,
Simply to create you
And to look at you.
P.S.: If one could only imagine how emotionally drained I am right now. I don’t know why I’m posting this. But life goes one. Tomorrow I’ll wake up on the Libertango, take a shower, and begin a new day. Painting and reading. Working, at home and for school, keeping myself busy. This will help not think about things. I shall try to sleep now. Gabi will visit me in my dreams tonight, we’ll be chasing each other on the Ahtopol’s beaches….:) Goodnight.
~Banita
