eledjo

My mom passed away in the very end of last year. She had a good life; good not in terms of easy or fun, but in the sense of doing good. Usually, it's difficult for children from a normal family to feel lucky to have parents, both parents — mom and dad. My own kids didn't figure that out until at least high school and one of my nephews who's finished college few years ago still doesn't get it. His psychoanalyst keeps finding faults with the way his mom raised him and it's difficult for us, relative outsiders, to explain how lucky he is despite all the shortcomings of his loving parents.

I just turned seven when I had to spend two weeks in the hospital of the Leningrad Pediatric Institute. The first couple of days felt like torture — the regiment, the tests, the books, the food, the strange people around me, whether adults or children. I still remember the glass boxes that served as our dorm rooms and the nurses, most likely medical students who were taking care of us. They were caring and kind, but still alien to my world. The most difficult part of being in the hospital was the sudden loneliness or, more precisely, what an existential philosopher would call _thrownness_. Also, I just couldn't understand why wouldn't they let my mom to be with me more than one hour a day at most (fucking Soviet system of patient visitation that was modeled more on a prison than on a human care facility).

My roommate, Vasya, was a kid just a couple of years older than me. His head was clean shaven, which was rather unusual for somebody of that age at the time. His eyes were blue and he had a really kind smile, gentle, somewhat apologetic, and, to my bewilderment, happy most of the time. Vasya didn't talk much, except when nurses stopped by to distribute pills or called us to the cafeteria for meals. He never cried or complained when the visitor hour was over — nobody visited him anyway and he seemed to be content with that awful situation.

tbc