Ludimila Kriskovich

Just Believe in Yourself

This book is dedicated to you. It’s no accident that you are holding this book.

Before you were born, God planned this moment in your life. This is how important you are!

This book describes the true life of a woman looking for happiness with an open mind. This person passes all possible tests in her life, but happiness has not met her on life’s journey.

Then there are the questions: what does it mean, this elusive happiness, True Life, Love, Hatred, Resentment, and Forgiveness? They are all our feelings, and man can understand them only through spirituality.

She is on the spiritual path, but with none of the happiness she seeks so desperately. Then there are the questions:why is there a division of the Road of Life and the Spiritual Path, if a man without a soul does not exist? Only spiritual change and the merging of two roads into one path can lead to human happiness.

The book provides life examples and practical answers to many spiritual questions of life. The reader is provided with the method itself, in practice, to find his own way home; the road to an understanding of his soul; to know why his soul came into this world; to learn the truth about who he actually is and what prevents all of us from being healthy and happy; and how it can be gained.

CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Physical life

The beginning of my life on earth

I was born in the U.S.S.R.

My socialist childhood

First life experiences

School

Music school

The first desire to know

Sport

The wheel of life set in motion

My parents

Transitional period

A visa to enter adult life has been obtained

Student

Wife

Work

Chernobyl

Divorce

My daughter and I

New job

In search of a prince

Second husband

My second child

Business

Perestroika

Health problems

My brother

My oldest daughter

The School of Universal Energy

The last warning

Preparation for immigration to Canada

English

Closing my business

Departure is delayed

Goodbye, Motherland!

Finally, I’m home!

Life from scratch

New life experiences

My teenage daughter

Goodbye, my dearest little mommy

Long-awaited work

First Canadian boyfriend

Second Canadian boyfriend

Third Canadian boyfriend

Do I even need a boyfriend?

Learning to live anew

People always try to prove what is already obvious… or the last drop

The beginning of a new life

My children

I’m happy

CHAPTER 2 The Spiritual Path

The Beginning of a Soul’s Life on Earth

The influence of society on the minds and actions of people

The influence of family on the feelings and actions of people

Parents

Happiness and Suffering

Earthquakes, disasters, and catastrophes

What does this or that situation teach us?

What is spirituality?

What is love?

Wisdom and enlightenment

The truth

Consciousness / Conscience

We can believe or not believe in God, but we remember him

Fortune and happiness

Is it possible to bypass or avoid destiny?

Time to forgive and not be offended

Freedom of choice

Where to find help?

What to do?

CHAPTER 3 The merger of the road of life and spiritual path, or How to act, or Change themselves, rather than waiting that someone will do it for us

Introduction

Just believe in yourself

Everything has its own beginning and its own ending, which is

in itself the beginning…

When I first read this story, I cried from the beauty of it, the love, the feeling of truth. And each time I read this tale, tears fill my eyes, and I feel that inner love that connects me to God’s Source. I have given it to different people to read and its reception has been widely varied. Please try to read it with your soul, not with your mind. Neale Donald Walsch wrote this story, “A Little Soul and God”.

Once upon a time…

Once a Little Soul said to God:

“I know who I am!”

And God replied:

“That’s great! So who are you?”

The Little Soul exclaimed:

“I am Light!”

God smiled wholeheartedly and affirmed:

“That’s true! You are Light.”

But very soon, just knowing who you were became not enough. And so the Little Soul went back to God and said:

“Hello, God! I would like to feel how it is to be Light.”

God replied:

“All right. So, you are Light, but you cannot see yourself when you are in Light, so we will place you into darkness.”

He continued:

“When you are surrounded by darkness, don’t wave your fists around, don’t yell, and don’t curse darkness. Be the Light in the darkness, and

remain calm. Let your Light so shine that everyone will know how special you are!”

The Little Soul happily replied:

“Thank you. I must experience what it’s like to be Light!”

God asked:

“What part of light would you like to be?”

The Little Soul didn’t understand.

God explained:

“Light consists of many parts. Light can be kind, gentle, creative, patient, helping, forgiving, friendly, and attentive. At any moment, as you desire, you can be any of these parts of Light or all of them at once. This is what it means to be Light.”

And so, the Little Soul, trembling with excitement, pronounced:

“I would like to be the part of Light that is called ‘forgiveness’”.

“All right,” said God, and added: “But there is no one here to forgive.”

The Little Soul couldn’t believe it:

“Nobody?”

God explained:

“Everything that I created is perfect. You could not find even one soul, out of all that I have created, that is less perfect than you are. Look around!”

God asked:

“So then who is there to forgive?”

The Little Soul sadly said:

“I wanted to experience what it’s like to forgive. I wanted to know that part of light, to know what it feels like.”

And right after these words, another sympathetic Soul stepped forward and said:

“Don’t worry, Little Soul. I will help you. I can come into your next life and do something so that you can forgive.”

The Little Soul asked:

“Why? Why are you going to do that?”

The Sympathetic Soul answered:

“It’s very simple. I will do it because I love you.”

It seemed that this response surprised the Little Soul.

“Don’t be surprised,” said the Sympathetic Soul, “You did the same for me. You’ve just forgotten it!”

And so the Sympathetic Soul explained:

“I will come into your next life and will create “bad things” for you in that life. I will do something truly horrible, so that you have the chance to “forgive”.

The Little Soul asked, a bit nervously:

“But what are you going to do that is so truly horrible?”

“Oh,” said the Sympathetic Soul, winking, “We’ll come up with something.”

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

“But you have to know something.”

The Little Soul asked:

“What is that?”

“I will have to slow my vibrations and become very evil in order to do these bad things. I will have to pretend to be someone completely unlike myself. And in return, I ask only one favor,” said the Sympathetic Soul.

The Little Soul said, with tears in her eyes:

“Anything! Anything at all! What can I do for you? You, who would do this for me, like an angel!”

God said:

“Of course, this Sympathetic Soul is an angel. I send you nothing except angels.”

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

“At the moment I hit the hardest, when I break your heart, at that very moment when I do to you the very worst things you can imagine, at that exact moment…”

“What?” interrupted the Little Soul, “What…?”

The voice of the Sympathetic Soul became much quieter, and she said:

“Remember who I really am.”

“Oh, I will remember! I swear! I will remember you exactly as I see you right now!” cried the Little Soul.

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

“All right. If you forget who I really am, then probably I won’t be able to remember who I really am for much longer, probably you too will forget who you really are, and we will both be lost. In that case, we will need another Soul to come to us and remind us both of who we really are.”

“No. I won’t forget!” promised the Little Soul again. “I will remember you and will be grateful to you for this gift, the possibility to experience for myself Who I Am.”

And so the agreement was made. The Little Soul was incarnated into a new life, with the desire to be the Light, the very special Light, called Forgiveness.

Each time a new Soul appeared in her life, bringing her joy or sadness, and especially when it was sadness, the Little Soul thought of what God had said to her:

“Always remember,” God smiled when he said this, “I send you no one but angels.”

The Beginning…

I was waiting for the moment when I would be ready to write this book, when my inner world would complete the necessary tasks that would get me to the starting point. Now, I feel that the time has come. Too many people have become lost in their lives and have forgotten who they really are. I ask for all the powers of the Universe to help me remind readers of who they truly are.

Perhaps my own life experience will assure someone that happiness is possible in this world – you just have to want to find it and to believe in yourself. That is why the title of this book came easily to me: “Just Believe in Yourself”.

I have divided my story into three chapters: physical life, spiritual life, and the unity of the two lives. I deeply believe, and my life has shown, that only the unity of these two paths can allow a person to experience fully the happiness and joy of his life.

There is only one language – the language of the Heart. There is only one religion – Love.

CHAPTER 1

Physical life

The beginning of my life on earth

I was born ten years after the end of the Second World War in the capital of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk, one of the republics of the former U.S.S.R. I was born at a time when people had only just begun to return to a normal life after many long years of war, suffering, deprivation, and losing loved ones. Nobody talked about it, but feelings of revival were in the air. According to my very first sensations, it was a feeling of some growing happiness, like the anticipation of a miracle and gratitude for every day of life.

I don’t remember any rainy days in my childhood; they have been erased from my memory. Memory holds only sunny, summery, warm days.

My first memories from my childhood are of my yard. In the part of the city where we lived, two-storey houses were constructed for four, six, or twelve families, but there was no specifically planned-out courtyard. These houses stood around a sports field, and therefore, were close to each other. Dirt paths led to the houses, and between them remained some unused land. My family and our neighbors used this public land for gardening. At the time, each family had a small garden, growing berries, various vegetables, and fruit trees. This garden not only provided some food for the families, but it was also a good opportunity to work with the land for those people who were used to labor.

Each family in our building had a separate entrance, which created a sense of independence. My brother, who was older than me by five years, and I had full freedom of choice about where to go and what to do, like most children at the time. Nobody even thought to worry about something happening to us. This freedom probably played a role in the fact that my memories of this time are only happy and bright.

To me, my courtyard seemed a huge place for unlimited investigations and learning new things. I’d like to define my yard. It is EVERYTHING around our house. It is EVERYWHERE that it is possible to go. It is EVERYTHING that you can touch, break, or build. It is EVERYTHING that no one can restrict. At the time, there was not much variety in kids’ toys. But they were all loved and kept for a long time. I didn’t

have any toys for playing in my courtyard. What for? It was so interesting there already.

Here is a meadow yellow with dandelions. They warm the eye like little suns. You can weave them into a crown and imagine yourself as a fairy-tale queen in a magic castle. You can make a magical soup from them that can heal any scratch. Here is a wooden fence, dividing who knows what, but one that you can’t climb so easily; the same fence, from which you can’t so easily climb down without tearing your clothes or bruising your legs. You must be creative. In those times, it was difficult to buy anything. All industries were just beginning to be restored, and the family budget didn’t have much money. None of that mattered, as my mom would say: “Most importantly, there is no war.” Or perhaps just wisdom showed itself: “If you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it.”

I don’t remember my parents fighting against the situation by asking endless questions: why is it so bad, I’m sick and tired of this, and when will this be over… This is where the miracle happens: when a person accepts calmly any given situation the way that it is and does not try to waste his energy on useless attempts to change this situation, then the person will be shown the best way to live in this situation. The answer comes naturally.

It was difficult to buy not only ready-made clothes, but even fabric for making them. But my father was a history teacher at the technical college, and he would bring home old, written-off red communist flags. My mother washed them, boiled them, separated the fabric from the backing, and sewed underwear and dresses for me out of it. Later on, this affected my oldest daughter’s clothing selection: for many years, I dressed her only in red.

I was around five years old. It was a bright, warm, summery, sunny day. I was happy, going out for a walk in my new red dress. This time I decided to explore a new territory and started walking in a new direction. Near some building, I happily discovered a huge rain puddle, and I started testing the depth of this fantastic, glittering puddle that reflected the light of the sun. But then, my leg sank into an unseen hole, and I fell completely into the puddle. My new dress! There was no end to my distress. I was sitting in the puddle and sobbing. Two kind “young ladies” (probably students) came over to me and started talking to me. Crying, I told them about the tragedy with my new dress. They took me by both hands and led me to their dorms. Even now, I remember that feeling of comfort and the sense of adventure I was experiencing for the first time. I sat on the bed naked, eating something, and watching my clothes being washed and then dried with

a big heavy iron. What a happy moment! I was standing, like a new shiny coin, my face washed and my hair combed, in a newly washed and ironed dress. A little later, they took me home, and I never saw them again. I don’t remember their faces or their names, but I still feel the warmth of their hearts.

How often in our lives do we feel the need to help others, but unable to find a “logical” explanation or spare time, we find only excuses for not doing simple, kind things. And as a result, we don’t warm our own or anyone else’s hearts, we don’t give joy to ourselves, nor to others, and we don’t let our feelings express themselves.

I was born in the U.S.S.R.

At the time of my childhood, my country was “building” socialism and planning to start “building” the most enlightened communist community on earth. Everyone had roughly the same income. There was no point in comparing who had the best furniture, the best clothing or car. Everyone was equal. It was not discussed. Everyone accepted this as an undeniable fact. But I’m sure that it was only on the surface. After so many years of Stalin’s brutality, people had a deep-seated fear, accumulated from numerous dramas that had happened to them or to their loved ones. And they tried not to stand out from the crowd. To be like everyone else was a forced way of life.

My mother sometimes recalled her university years. A girl in her class wrote incredible poetry. Her poems were rather straightforward and honest. One night, a black windowless pick-up truck pulled up to their dorms, several people burst into the room where she was sleeping, and took her away somewhere. Where did they take her? Nobody saw her again or knew what happened to her after that. This was the Stalinist method. People who didn’t “fit” the regime simply disappeared without trial or investigation. Although I think these methods are used even today, they’re just more subtle and the actions not so obvious. This fear hovered around quite long during my childhood. I didn’t witness these times but I felt the fear when my mother told me stories like that.

That was the fear of the generation that went through this… and this fear was passed on to the next generation.

I remember only good things from my childhood, did my memory not keep the bad or did nothing bad ever happen?

I remember a summer evening. Many neighbors from the nearby houses had come out into the courtyard after work and dinner. The adults were sitting on the benches and discussing the latest (and the future) news. The kids played team games… hopscotch, jumping ropes, hide-and-seek. Someone hides, someone finds, someone makes others laugh, someone frightens, someone catches, and someone throws. There was something for everyone. Amazing memories! Kids found game partners for themselves – whether by age, gender, or as they wished. The adults had nothing to do with it – it was none of their business. I remember running around until I was dizzy, getting so hungry I could faint. And the most popular “sandwich” was a piece of rye bread sprinkled with sugar. Delicious! We always had a healthy group appetite. Even if you weren’t hungry, seeing the other kids eat with such relish made you drool. It was normal to share food with the other kids. It seemed like someone else’s bread smelled better, tasted better, and the sugar was sweeter. Or maybe that wasn’t the reason.

At that time, you couldn’t buy as much bread as you wanted. Families were given ration cards. This was a certain amount of groceries a family was allowed to buy each month. This wasn’t so bad, but you couldn’t always find bread in the stores. And when it did appear on the shelves, the whole family lined up to buy one loaf of bread per person in the family. The more family members were in the line-up, the more loaves they could buy. This was a highly unpleasant time for me. My father made me stand in these line-ups, taking me away from, in my opinion, much more important activities.

Every winter in almost every neighborhood, people made ice-skating areas by pouring water on the ground. In the middle of the “ice rink”, they would put a big real Christmas tree with paper decorations and twinkly lights. In the evenings, there was music, and whole families would come with their skates and pass the evening after work skating in circles around the tree.

My brother’s and my first skates resembled metal sleds, about twice as big as our feet and we attached them to our shoes. This was an unforgettable time for me. Imagine, a frosty evening, a huge Christmas tree with decorative lights, a waltz melody playing, the sound of skates gliding across the ice, people holding hands, moving around the tree to the tempo of the music. No rush, pure enjoyment, many pink cheeks from the cold. Why did people forget about these kinds of pastimes?

Our apartment had a separate entrance on the first floor. In front of the entrance was a square concrete porch with some steps. Every year my mother planted flowers around the porch. She loved dahlias, but

didn’t neglect other types of flowers either. The flowers were always colorful, simple, and created a happy atmosphere. We made bouquets out of them when we went to visit others, for birthdays, or to bring for our teachers on the first day of school. Everyone who had the smallest bit of land planted flowers. I loved the colors, the smells, and the variety of flowers along my path on the way to school. Each time the flowers were different: sometimes budding, sometimes wilted and old, sometimes flowering, and sometimes sick. Just like people… birth, death, different ages, different stages, a constant process of change. Flowers were everywhere.

The streets were incredibly clean. Socialism had a plan for everything. The state planned in advance what to plant, when to harvest, when to clean the streets, and when to water the flower plots. The people, like instruments following a plan “descended from the heavens”, made it a reality. The idea behind Socialism was actually good.

Kids went to kindergarten, played sports, and got health care all for free, and adults, also received free education and health care. There was almost no unemployment. No one worried about losing his or her job; it was not too difficult to find work.

The media reminded people constantly that everything in this country belonged to everyone, and that we had to take care of it as if it belonged to us. People believed these good ideas and words. This was no different from any faith or religion. Some religious teachings also have good ideas and right words; people believe in them and follow their religious leaders. To agree with an idea and follow it is not necessarily to change yourself. To agree with an idea and to follow it is to go the path of least resistance and not to bring your new ideas to humanity.

The Socialist plan decided everything. Everything was good and correct in the plans for the creation of Socialism, but one very important thing was not included in those plans: the “question” of the process of individual change and self-improvement as part of the whole Communist system. Without the development of people’s creative abilities, without an internal faith in one’s own ability to create the world’s first Communist country, any idea, even the most brilliant one, hit a dead-end.

The Government’s plan forced every person to be a part of it, but not to create or to develop. This, like still water, will flower and deteriorate without movement to keep it fresh.

People believed that conscientious labor according to the Government’s plan would lead eventually to the creation of Socialism.

My mother told me how she understood it. She imagined Communism like a society in which there was no money and everything was free. You go to the store and take no more than what you need. Everyone trusts each other. Everyone is equal. Great fairy tale. In this way, the government gradually made people lose their ability to think, to create. They were taught to live according to the plan that somebody had created, someone had approved, and someone had put into action. People began to understand this later, after the fall of the U.S.S.R.

My socialist childhood

As a child, I loved to watch the clouds, how they constantly shifted, changed, how they came from nowhere and disappeared into nothingness. Clouds can look like animals, like people, like flowers, or like monsters. And how fascinating it is to look at a starry sky! Where is the beginning and where is the end? What’s behind that star? How to comprehend infinity? Who keeps all of this in such impeccable order? The sky, the clouds, the stars inspired many fantasies and never gave the idea that man could control any of it.

Kids can be so fascinated by their games! And they don’t need any guidance or toys. I remember my favorite childhood game called “secret”. You find a piece of glass from a broken bottle, attractive flowers, rocks, sticks… anything that catches your eye. You dig a small hole in the ground, carefully arrange your finds in a pattern inside, and cover your creation with the glass. It’s so beautiful! You admire your creation and cover it with dirt, feeling completely certain that nobody will ever find this “secret” and only you know about it. The process was the interesting part, the result irrelevant. From birth, each person has an innate desire to create, to be a creator. Where there is a desire, there will be ability.

I went to kindergarten from age three and spent all day there with pleasure. My parents worked six days a week. My mother, on her one day off, had a huge job to complete: do the laundry, cook, sew, make pickles, patch up, clean the apartment. Why was she the only one doing it? Perhaps it’s a cultural tradition passed down through generations. Perhaps my grandmothers too took all of this work upon themselves. But what is certain is that I also took on this duty, without even asking “Why?” Apparently, my grandmothers gave me this “infection”. On the other hand, if my parents had not followed the

cultural tradition and had instead done the work together, they would have probably “killed each other.”

I remember well how my mother was washing the sheets by hand in the big bathtub, with the help of a wooden board, when I walked into the bathroom (I was about four years old) and noticed her sweaty nose, red face, and hands swollen from the hot water. I remember how I went up to her, took her wet hand, and kissed it. I could feel how tired she was. My own kids could never notice it, feel it, comprehend it. Perhaps it’s just an experience that they need to go through, and I have already been through it in a past life.

Kindergarten – that was “my job”. The two-storey building looked like a small modern castle and was surrounded by a fence you couldn’t climb. Between the fence and the building were playgrounds with sandboxes, slides, and benches for kids of different ages. Parents just dropped the kids off at kindergarten and then picked them up. They didn’t pay money. The government paid for everything: feeding the kids three times a day, health care, summer camp, New Year’s celebrations, presents for the holidays, New Year’s costumes for the kids. In this way, the government cared for the new generation.

It’s difficult even to imagine in our time your child being fed three times a day for free. Porridge for breakfast – a different sort every day – bun with butter, tea or hot chocolate, and fruit. For lunch, hot fresh soup, borscht or sour cabbage soup, mashed potatoes with fish, chicken, or beef, and compote made from dried or fresh fruit. For an afternoon snack, cottage cheese cake, omelet, dessert, and fruit or vegetable juice. Even now, I wouldn’t say no to that! I’ve always had a healthy appetite, but I remember that kids without much appetite were not left hungry or ate at least a part of this delicious and healthy food.

We had an airy sleeping room where we slept after lunch. Each had his own bed with clean sheets. In the summer, when it was hot, our beds were put on the terrace, and we slept outside in the fresh air. It could be compared to a mother’s care, but it was the government’s care about the new generation. The government cared about its future work force. We always had medical personnel in the building. Children got vaccinations, dental care, yearly medical check-ups, with their blood, urine, and stools checked.

Nurses who worked at the kindergarten gave children their prescribed medication throughout the day. In the evening, when their parents picked up these children, the nurses sent the medication home with them so they could continue taking it in the evenings and on weekends.

The government took full responsibility for the medical care of the kids who went to kindergarten. Parents had no idea when and which vaccinations needed to be done. They only knew that a given vaccination had been administered and this or that side effect was possible. As for the children that were brought up at home, their parents took them to the closest free clinics, and the medical staff informed them about vaccinations or scheduled tests. How well, how correctly and carefully everything was organized!

How wonderful the New Year’s celebrations were in kindergarten! From birth I was a very organized, brave, and obedient girl, and probably for this reason, I was always chosen to be Snegurochka, “Santa’s helper girl”. One year, I was even invited to be Snegurochka at the neighboring kindergarten. Every New Year, a huge live Christmas tree, smelling like resin and forest was delivered to each kindergarten. It was decorated with various bobbles and toys, with a huge star topper and colorful lights. Each child received an animal costume and an accompanying poem or song that he had to perform for Santa Claus. Santa Claus had a magic wand that lit up the lights on the tree when he touched it. But first we had to shout all together: “Light up, Christmas tree!” I genuinely believed in all these miracles and wholeheartedly rejoiced at these incredible days.

And how wonderful was the time spent at summer camps! Kids from the kindergarten were taken to camp for a week. We lived in fully equipped buildings with hot water and toilets inside.

The magical world of the awakening forest, the singing of birds, walks along forest paths. This has stayed with me my whole life.

In the media, at any time, you could hear many speeches by the head of state, Communist party members, regulations, decisions, and so on. Of course, this was Communist propaganda. And for children from infancy were created conditions to cause them to love their country and believe that they were born in the greatest place on earth. I too genuinely believed that I was incredibly lucky that I had been born in the best country in the world! In kindergarten, we sang many patriotic songs, praising Lenin and our country that was “building” Communism. These were very happy songs, and I remember many of them even now. While kids enjoyed singing patriotic hymns, their parents, by their own example, showed that for them, as creators of the bright future, there could be nothing more important than work.

First life experiences

I remember, when I was still in preschool, if my father picked me up from kindergarten, I would run immediately to the bus stop to meet my mother after work. I missed her a lot and feared that something might happen to her. I’d like to focus a little closer on this “fear” and of how it stayed in my life almost forever.

It’s noteworthy for me to have forgotten about this event for many, many years. My desire to be free from the past uncovered this memory hidden so deeply inside me.

I was around five years old. I had always been a good girl, as parents understand it – a child who eats well, doesn’t get sick often, plays with their toys by themselves; in short, one that doesn’t bother anyone. On that day, I don’t remember the real reason, but I absolutely refused to do what my mother had asked. I remember that I got so angry with her that I grabbed her hair with all my strength to cause her pain. My mother didn’t chastise me, she didn’t even raise her voice, she simply refused to notice me from that moment, as if I didn’t exist. This lasted several days. I remember how chills went up my spine, how tense my whole body was, how deeply I felt my helplessness, how hopelessly lonely I was in the world.

Nobody had taught me how to say the simple but very important words: “Forgive me, please, Mom. I’ll never do it again.” I didn’t know about the existence of such a simple solution. In my country, people were not used to telling each other “sorry” and “I love you” very often. I only heard the word “sorry” in my childhood when my father was spanking my brother with his belt and saying, “Say you’re sorry, bastard.”

That was my first, and probably the most significant experience of the appearance of fear, the fear of being alone in the world. And how I catered to my mother afterwards! How afraid I was to say what I thought out loud, what if she didn’t like it and stopped talking again! I didn’t know that this was fear, what fear was… I just changed. This fear took away a part of my freedom; it started to control my actions. I hid this fear so deeply that very soon I had forgotten about it and about what had happened. And subconsciously, the fear of being abandoned, forgotten, lonely, had taken up permanent residence in my heart.

This probably explains why it was always difficult for me to say “NO’, even when it needed to be said – because of the fear of being left alone.

I remember, when I was still in kindergarten, my father once took my brother and me to the central park. This was one of those exceptional

events that happens once in a lifetime, stays in your memory forever, and causes many other effects.

It was a hot summer day. Mom was at work, and Dad suddenly decided to show some attention to the children. He took us to the city park. At the entrance, he bought us ice cream, then we rode various rides, ate more ice cream, drank cold fizzy water with syrup, ran around the maze looking for each other, and ate ice cream again. Dad was always different without Mom around. I liked him like that.

At the time, you could find street vendors everywhere who sold carbonated water. Glasses were washed in a thin stream of water in front of you and then filled with fizzy water with or without syrup. It was so delicious! I never heard of anyone getting sick from it. Why? Sometimes a person can be healed of cancer with vitamin C pills, if he believes in their power. And sometimes, the fear of getting food poisoning can cause real food poisoning. Please find the answer yourself.

The day passed quickly, and we got enormous pleasure out of the time we spent together. The large amount of cold ice cream and water had cooled our enthusiasm about visiting the park. In my family, it was custom to drink things warm, no colder than room temperature. My body had gotten used to warm drinks. When you get used to something, then you begin to run on autopilot. And all of a sudden, here’s something cold, how do I react to it? You must react to a disturbance. So my body reacted too. When Mom got home, she noticed immediatelythat I wasn’t well. She put a thermometer under my arm and read the result with horror – forty degrees C. The first question was directed at my dad: “What did you do all day?” I don’t remember the answer because of my fever, but my fever got worse after Dad’s answer. My mom was beside herself and said that she would never entrust the kids to him again.

Unfortunately, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. That night I was burning up, and in the morning, I couldn’t swallow because my throat hurt. In the morning, the doctor came, prescribed me some medication, and said I had to stay in bed for a few days. During one of those days when I was home alone, I felt an ache in all my joints. I brought all the pillowsto my bed I could find and put them all around my legs. My legs warmed up, and I fell asleep. This is how my mother found me when she got home from work. She sensed that there was something wrong and called the emergency doctor immediately. The doctor listened to my heart, checked my throat, and suggested that my mother take me to the hospital right away. The ambulance took me to the children’s hospital, and my mother left me there. The next

morning, the doctors examined me and concluded that the tonsillitis had caused some heart complications. They determined that my condition was lower than satisfactory and prescribed a three-week long hospital treatment. So, for three weeks, the hospital became my new home.

I remember that the ward was big, clean, and well lit. Six metal beds stood along the walls, and a big table stood in the middle of the room. Near each bed was a bedside table where we kept our personal belongings. Each day we had a strict schedule. A nurse came at six in the morning and woke up all the children, giving each a thermometer. After ten minutes, our body temperatures were recorded into a journal. Then we had blood and urine tests. The nurses helped us with everything. After the tests, we had breakfast in bed. They fed us very well. After breakfast, we took our medicine, and a small rest in bed before the doctor came. The doctor, armed with temperature records and our latest test results, listened to our hearts with a stethoscope, and examined the body and the throat, to continue the treatment, to make any changes to it, or to send us home. After the doctor’s visit, we had to receive the treatments that the doctor had prescribed.

The hospitals were well stocked with modern medical equipment. The government cared about the health of the people. Health care was completely free.

After the treatments, the patients returned to their beds. Lunch was served exactly according to schedule. Then our medicine and a two-hour nap. At this time, silence was strictly observed. After the nap, a snack, more medicine, rest, dinner.

We received ahealthy diet food, almost without salt, sugar, or spices. I remember how once we got mashed potatoes with a piece of salted fish. When the nurse had put a plate on each bedside table and left the room, I, noticing my bedside neighbor was absent, quickly grabbed her piece of fish and ate it. I craved salt so badly, and my one piece was clearly not enough to satisfy my craving. In this way, I experienced what it was like to be a thief. I ate my portion too. Then I covered myself with my blanket and pretended to be asleep. I was afraid that someone might find out what I had done.

It’s interesting that the taste of the salty fish is longforgotten, but the feeling of having done something bad repelled any desire to steal for my entire life. I think that if stealing, or any other act in life, brings joy, then you want to repeat it again and again. I’m almost forced to say, “If you want to steal – do it, but do it with pleasure!”

Visiting hours were after six p.m. Concerned moms, dads, grandmas, and grandpas rushed to visit their adored children. And the kids were waiting impatiently for their treats or their gifts. On the very first day of my hospital stay, my mom brought me several lined notebooks, pencils, an eraser, and a coloring book. This was a real treasure for me. Usually, my mom gave inexpensive, but very valuable gifts, so I was never bored in the hospital. And it was great to receive some rare attention from my mom, who worked all the time. My dad, apparently, was grounded because of his reckless behavior in the park.

The days flew by, my hospital stay went as planned, and the doctor assigned a date for my release from the hospital. The evening before I left, the doctor spent a long time talking to my mother, and based on her reaction, it was obvious that my heart problem had remained. The next day, ready to leave the hospital, I waited for my mom but she was unable to leave work and pick me up.

My mom worked at the Railway Head Office in the position of department manager. Work there resembled the military. A huge, impressive building four storeys high, regal steps leading to the entrance, columns on the sides, everything pointed to the importance and power of this societal structure. The workday began with a bell. What do I mean by that? At five minutes to nine everyone must be in their seats.Exactly at nine a.m., a loud bell rang through the building: the signal for the beginning of the workday. The second bell rang at eleven a.m.: workplace exercise. At the bell, everyone had to go immediately into the hallway, or to stand up and take their place at the desk for exercising. Once the bell had gone and all employees were in position, a recording was turned on which directs the exercises to music. It was a series of simple exercises, like “lift your hands, legs hip-width apart, touch your right arm to your left leg,” and so on. After ten minutes of exercise, another bell rang, signaling the end of the exercises and the continuation of the workday.

Almost everyone brought their lunch from home. Usually they brought a lot of bread, potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausages. Officially, you were allowed to have a one-hour lunch, but everyone tried to complete as much work as possible and shortened their lunch to the bare minimum. Work. Exactly at five p.m. the bell rang that signaled the end of the workday. At the bell, people stopped working, put their papers away inside their desks, and left the building. Discipline. My mother worked in a place, in a society, where personal problems had to remain personal and did not interfere with work.

For this reason, my dad came to pick me up from the hospital instead, which I was not happy about. I was seeing him through my mom’s

eyes. If my mom wasn’t happy with dad, then that meant I had to feel the same way. This is the case when we gradually begin to see the world through the eyes of those we are dependent on, those we love.

It was a sunny fall day. Without holding my dad’s hand, making a face to display my disapproval of his behavior towards Mom, I walked slightly in front of him. Very soon, I felt weakness in my legs, but showing stubbornness, decided to walk home by myself, without asking for help.

I was happy to be back at home. Dad went to work; my brother was still at school. I wanted so badly to do something nice for my mom that I tidied up the house a little, but again felt pain in my legs. I went to bed with pillows all around my legs and fell asleep. When my mom got home from work and saw me in the same exact position as before I went to the hospital, she was very upset. This disappointment grew into anger at my dad when she found out that I had walked home from the hospital, that my dad hadn’t carried me home. A sick child appeared in our family –me. My mom believed that the heart was the most important organ in the human body, that it’s an engine that’s very difficult to repair. The question, “How’s your heart?” became a commonplace question for me. I felt healthy and perceived this question as additional, welcome attention towards me.

School

I said goodbye to my kindergarten, and my parents registered me in school. It was September 1st. I walked with my mom to school, carrying a bouquet of fall flowers, cut from our garden. First time and first grade. All the students had a uniform: for girls – a brown dress with a white apron overtop on holidays and a black one for normal days, for boys – a dark-blue suit with a white or blue shirt. Those who could afford to buy the uniform did so, and those who could not sewed it themselves. I had a brown pleated dress and a white scalloped apron that my mom had sewed for this special day. I was very anxious about the unknown but most of all, I was proud of myself for being an adult and going to real school.

It was a warm sunny day. The first-graders met their teachers in a small field behind the school. Many excited and anxious children dressed in neat school uniforms with their parents created an atmosphere of a significant day. Each knew the letter of his first-grade division, 1A, 1B, 1C… and found his teacher, holding a sign in her hands with the appropriate letter. Each freshly baked student stood

near his teacher and curiously observed his classmates. And when all the first-graders had grouped themselves into their classes, welcoming music started playing, the teachers began to pair students and organize them into neat columns. Each took his appropriate place: parents in the audience, students in pairs behind their teachers.

Everyone was ready and waiting. For whom… for what? The music faded away and the principal, a VIP in the school, took the stage to welcome the new recruits. I remember my sensations, how everything went quiet, how everything was soaked with tension. And the name of this tension is discipline. This was the first moment in my life, when society began to take control over my actions and influence my life. I will mention many times, how society, culture, family, and tradition influence our lives.

Discipline is the rules that everyone must execute. In accordance with these rules, everyone was in his or her appropriate place. Parents, teachers, children, and the principal were ready for the beginning of the new school year.

The principal, looking around at his “domain”, satisfied by what he saw, began his welcoming speech. I don’t remember a word of what he said, but I remember how I felt: He is so powerful; He is so intelligent; He can do anything; He is always right; He is in control of everything.

There was nothing surprising in the fact that after the principal’s welcoming speech, all the first years, followed their teacher to classin straight ranks, showing impeccable discipline.

In those times, after years of Stalinist repression, the fear of jail or even death as a consequence of not conforming to the rules of society was still alive. So the children, fed by their mothers’ milk mixed with this fear, willingly followed the rules. To control people, you need to plant the seeds of fear in their souls, and the fear will do the rest.

And so there we were, in the classroom for the first time. The teacher’s desk was piled with bouquets of flowers. Three rows of desks… thirty to thirty-five students per class. The teacher assigned us to our desks, two students at each one. The students were organized by height: the shorter ones were put in the front of the class, and the tallest ones got the desks in the back row. The desks were wooden with a hinged panel at stomach level, so it was easier to stand up. I was assigned a desk somewhere in the middle of the room. The teacher began to explain to us how to sit properly when listening to the teacher, that our arms had to be bent at the elbow and folded on top of one another. The students practiced how to do this. Then the

teacher explained what to do when asking or answering a question: the left hand must remain on the desk, bent at the elbow, and the right elbow must be on the desk with the hand in the air, fingers outstretched. The students practiced how to do this, too. The correct spots for notebooks, books, pens, pencils, and backpacks were shown. Then the teacher explained what to do when you were called to the blackboard to answer a question: the student must flip up the hinged panel on the desk, place the (right or left) leg into the aisle between the desks, push off the desk with both arms, stand up, and walk to the board. The correct position at the blackboard had to be in the middle of the board and at the level of the teacher’s desk. You could speak only after the teacher gave you permission.

All the rules had to be stated. The laws of school life were established. All of our “MUST-dos” were rehearsed. And that was the first school lesson of my life in first grade on September 1st.

During the second period, our teacher led us on a tour of the school. We followed her in neat pairs, as she showed us where the girls’ and boys’ washrooms were, the cafeteria, the library, the gym, and the principal’s office. She explained that students that broke the rules would be called to the principal’s office for a “talk”. In short, that magic wand, in the form of the principal, for enforcing discipline, was shown to the students so they knew who was boss.

During the third period, we had a tour of the school grounds. We saw the school garden with its vegetables and flowers, the exercise equipment on the sports field, and the workshop, where the older students learned the skills of woodworking. We were instructed on how to enter the school and how to exit it, which doors to use and how to cross the street in front of the school. In those times, almost all first-graders walked to and from school by themselves, as their parents were at work. Parents simply put the house keys on a string around their first-grader’s necks, directing them at age seven into their independent, government-managed school life.

In the fourth period, we went in a column to the library to receive our textbooks. At that time, the government provided the textbooks to students for free. Sometimes you got a textbook that wasn’t brand new, but that the librarianshad fixed up. We put our textbooks away into our school bags, and our teacher explained that we had to take care of the books, that we were not allowed to make notes in them, not allowed to get them dirty, not allowed to fold the pages, and not allowed to carry them around without a book cover. The entire fourth period took place under the slogan of “What you are not allowed to do with your textbooks.”

Classes were forty-five minutes long with fifteen-minute breaks in between. The last bell rang, my first day of school ended, and I headed home.

Schools at that time contained all three schools in one – primary school, middle school, and secondary school. Primary school was for kids aged seven to ten, grades one to four, and they received a certificate of completion at the end of their primary education. Middle school was grades five to eight, and at the end a certificate of completion of an eight-year education program, granting the right to go to a trade school or start working. This education was compulsory, but going secondary school was a choice the students themselves or their parentsmade. Getting a certificate of completion for secondary school, grades nine and ten, opened the door to higher education.

I loved going to school. We wrote with a pen that had a replaceable metal feather. This feather was dipped into an inkwell. In the first two grades, each student brought his own inkwell every day, placed it in its notch in the desk, and every one to two words dipped his feather in the ink. There were daily accidents with ink blotches, ink spilled on textbooks, ruined aprons. But how perfectly you could write in your notebook! Each letter was formed by pressing on the feather in the middle and not pressing on the outsides. This was the old-fashioned Russian style of writing. I liked neatness in my notebooks and could write beautifully and with great pleasure.

Several times throughout the day, our teacher asked us to stand beside our desks and do some light exercises. For example, stretching our hands outwards, opening and closing our hands, we would say together: “We’ve been writing, we’ve been counting, our hands are getting tired. Now we’re having a little break, and we’ll be ready to write again.” And every day at eleven a.m., all the students went to the main hallway, stood in long rows, and did exercises for ten minutes to accompanying record of music and instructions.

We had the same teacher for all of primary school. She was like a mother to us. She gradually taught us to write, starting with making straight lines, then slanted lines, then half circles, circles, and dots.

Our education system was designed for an average-level student. Everything was taught gradually, without pressure but strictly according to the schedule set out by the Ministry of Education of the U.S.S.R. From the second grade, we were taken to theatres, the circus, and the philharmonic. The parents just paid for the ticket, and the school took care of the rest. We saw every new show at the circus and many children’s plays in the city theatres. We listened to classical music at the philharmonic. Once a week, parent-teacher meetings took

place. At these meetings, the teachers told the parents about their children’s successes and setbacks, any problems with their children’s behavior, and anything else that needed to be brought to their attention. I liked going to school.

Music school

One of my friends lived near me, and we would walk to school together. Her mother played the piano. I remember the strong influence that music had on me, how deeply it touched something inside me. Already in preschool, I started asking my mom to buy me a piano and to let me learn how to play it. My mom even asked my doctor about the effects of piano playing on my unhealthy heart. The doctor, displaying the highest level of professional knowledge, rattled off a lot of things to my mom about how it was not prohibited, but not recommended. So my mother was unable to say no to my pleading eyes.

However, my mother couldn’t afford a piano at the time, and she said that she would start saving up for it. After her promise, I started paying close attention to the way her money was being spent. And since I wanted to get my piano as soon as possible, I started often saying to her “Mommy, don’t buy me this juice, better save that money for my piano.”

Time passed and the long-awaited day came. The truck with the black new shiny piano appeared on the horizon. This truck couldn’t pull up to my front door, because the road around the house was for pedestrians only. But this was only half-bad. Four sturdy men lowered this four-hundred-and-fifty kilo “beauty” on leather slings and brought it to the door. Several attempts to drag the piano through the door and rotate it to bring it up the stairs failed. The doorway turned out to be too narrow. I was watching all of this unfold and burning with impatience and excitement. My parents and the movers held a meeting in front of the piano. It was a silent meeting. Each was trying once again to “feel out” with his eyes possible variations to manipulate the piano in the entrance, at the turning point to the staircase. And when all possible variations that played out inside everyone’s head turned out to be impossible, practically at the same time, all of the meeting participants turned their heads to the sky, as if asking for an answer from above. And they got it! The piano could be delivered through the second-floor window! Great idea! But it weighs almost half a ton… someone said that they had seen a small crane nearby. Somebody said that it could

be lifted on planks of wood. But the idea of using large wooden planks somehow passed away before birth. Finally, the piano, securely wrapped for the safe “hands” of the crane, was smoothly lifted to the second-storey window, cleared of glass, window-frames, everything, now just a hole in the wall. The caring hands of the movers received my treasure, and they placed it in the spot my mother had indicated.

My joy knew no bounds! It seemed for me that the whole world had changed! This was the only valuable thing in my house that belonged only to me. How frequently I reminded my brother, “Don’t touch it! It’s mine!” A few days later the tuner came. Everything was ready to begin lessons.

My mother took me to the music school for piano lessons. The young teacher, who I thought was mythically beautiful, tested my musical rhythm. I passed the test easily, and the teacher offered me my first music lesson. I had waited for this moment for so long! What can I remember? The teacher was playing some melody, to show me an example of what I could learn. I remember the enchanting sounds of the music, the sunbeams coming through the open window, the smell of perfume… I remember my strong desire and impatience to learn to play the piano. I will always remember how that music influenced me, how lightly the teacher’s fingers moved along the keys, speaking to me in the language of music.

The school cost money, but it was quite affordable for us. So I became a student of the first grade of music school. I practiced at home every day for at least two hours. Twice a week in the evening, my mother took me to my music lesson, so my teacher could check that I had done my homework and teach me something new. I usually got the highest grade. But a less-than-perfect grade caused many tears and disappointment. It’s interesting – nobody forced me to be perfect, nobody got mad at me for not being perfect, only my own wish to have the highest grades and be perfect brought me so much disappointment.

On Sundays, we had musical theory lessons. During the first few lessons, my theory teacher gave me a sharp reprimand about my work. We wrote musical notes, and I made many mistakes. The teacher checked my book and said: “I can’t imagine how you can study in a public school if you’re so dumb.” Simple and tasteful. She killed my desire to learn musical theory forever.

With one sentence, she taught me to deceive. One sentence, but how much was accomplished! I was very upset by her words, but I didn’t tell my mom about them. Who wants to inform their mother that according to a grown-up, she is dumb! I wasn’t completely sure

whether it was a lie or the truth. The next lesson, I felt so uncomfortable, so out of place, that I was actually unable to understand what the teacher was talking about.

On the one hand, I’m clever; on the other, I’m dumb. I decided to take the side that was to my advantage. To be clever. I stopped going to musical theory, but lied to my mother and said I was still going. I never liked lying. But I didn’t see any other alternative then. So I remained musical theory-illiterate for the rest of my life. But piano playing came easily to me, and brought many deep wonderful feelings.

Once a year, the music school held student concerts in the big auditorium for the parents. I participated in those too, successfully. My deception was only discovered after seven years of piano lessons, when I was supposed to get a diploma for completing music school. During the preparations for granting the diploma, someone discovered that I had never been to theory lessons. I never got the diploma, but I have never regretted it.

The first desire to know

In the second grade, when I learned how to read well, I felt a strong need to learn. Used to my parents being busy and my brother being unable to give me anything but a hit over the head, I decided to get a library card. The library was close to our house, and every time I walked past its windows, the colorful book covers would catch my attention. I remember how I circled the library several times, not daring to go in. Finally, I overcame my uncertainty and entered the building. A friendly woman behind the front desk took down my first and last name, the number of my school, and gave me my first ever library book. It was a large picture book with only a few pages. I brought this book home, sat down on the couch, opened it proudly and happily, and read the entire thing very quickly. It was the first book of my life! I liked it so much that I wanted immediately to read another book and rushed back to the library. I didn’t get a different book on that day, they told me to come back tomorrow. Rules are rules. There were very many books in the library, and I was constantly reading.

The most important thing is that I gained this life experience by myself, without waiting for somebody to help me.

Sport

In the third grade, a young man came into our P.E. class. He introduced himself as a graduate of the sports institute and a tennis coach. We had about forty students in our class. The coach started telling us about tennis. Almost nobody had heard of this game. His talk was so passionate, so captivating, that after class, when the teacher asked, “Who would like to sign up to learn to play tennis?” practically the entire class said they wanted to join.

And so, the first lesson. Almost forty students were lined up on the tennis field, ready to take the rackets in their hands and play. The coach greeted everyone and began to explain that before you can take the racket, you need to train your body. Everyone moved to the sports field, designed for exercises in stretching, jumping, and running. Two hours flew by, and the coach announced the end of the first training session. He scheduled the next one in two days. When I came home, I started telling my mom about the lesson. My mom said that I was not allowed to play sports, that the doctors had prohibited it, that I had a bad heart, and that she was also forbidding me to play.

I remember this event like a blow, like something that was taking away my freedom. I still remembered, subconsciously, the experience I had when my mom stopped talking to me. I didn’t argue, but I felt a strong sense of bewilderment and some sort of injustice. The next day, having gotten home from school, eaten, and played the piano, I imagined that I would now be going to tennis practice. I decided to go there and watch from the sidelines. When I was walking up to the tennis courts, I ran into the coach, who asked me to help bring the tennis balls onto the court. Before I knew it, I was practicing with everyone else.

This time exactly half of the students that had signed up showed up to practice. I liked learning how to play tennis. But each practice, there were less and less students from my class. A month later, I continued coming to practice, but there was nobody else left from my class. In the end, only about eight people remained who continued to practice, roughly the same age (perhaps one or two years apart), from different schools.

This continued for about two months. I went to school, to music lessons, and to practice. No one in my family knew about my tennis practices. No one asked me about anything, anyway. My brother always occupied my parents’ attention.

Only many years later, I realized how much my brother had “done for me”, taking all of my parents’ attention upon himself, and giving me freedom.

My brother was five years older than me, with an extraordinarily sharp sense of humor, and he had “gifted hands” and was very talented. He didn’t like discipline and always tried to go against the rules. In his ten years of school education, he “switched” schools five times. He was constantly being expelled from school for misbehavior. For example, in primary school, he covered the blackboard in wax and ruined a Russian lesson because it was impossible to write on the board with chalk. In this way, he expressed his disagreement with his teacher. He displayed it everywhere and had no fear of punishment. Where there is no fear, “creative energy”, that in this case was directed at the expression of freedom, it is very productive for gaining experiences. He did “bad” things, but he never repeated himself.

I remember our neighbors complaining constantly to my father about my brother’s behavior. They would complain, and my father would punish him. Once, I don’t know what happened between my brother and our downstairs’ neighbors, but my brother broke the glass in all their apartment windows. As usual, swearing, my neighbors complained to my dad about my brother’s bad behavior. My dad was so angry that he took a leather belt and started beating my brother with it. It was a terrible scene. My mom was at work. I, screaming, tried to protect my brother from the strikes, but it was impossible. I received some of the blows. I was crying, feeling the unfairness of it. I didn’t even know what to do.

When my dad was tired of the beating, he poured some sort of grain into the corner of the room and made his son stand on his knees in it.An old method of punishment my father had applied from his own experience in his childhood. All night long, my brother stood on his knees on the grains. My father probably thought that he needed to punish his son properly just once, and then he would remember the lesson and be afraid to misbehave again.

This method is used when one person wants to control another – plant the seeds of fear and the fear will make it happen. The next day my father was certain that the “job” he had done had been valuable and had shown his unruly son a good lesson. In the morning, everyone went about their business as usual. When I was returning home from my “secret” practice, once again I saw broken glass in the neighbors’ windows, which they had just put in that morning. I don’t remember how my dad reacted, but there was no fight that evening at home. My father never again used the belt as a punishment for my brother.

Yes, we all teach one another.

I trained in secret until the first snowfall. On that day, my coach, as a reward for my good progress, gave me my first, very own tennis racket. This new, wooden racket brought me great happiness and pride. But when I was walking up to my house, I thought with horror that this racket might give away my secret if my mother saw it. I wrapped it in newspapers, found a quiet spot behind my house, and covered it with a thick layer of snow.

This went on for a month, until my coach showed up at my house to meet my parents. It was Sunday, when my mother, as usual, was trying to finish an impossible amount of housework. Through the window, I saw my coach approaching our front door. I nearly died from the horror that my mom would find everything out. What must be must be. The coach rang the doorbell; I opened the door for him, invited him into the living room, called my mom, and ran away to another room. After her talk with the coach, my mom called me and asked me, quietly but very strictly: “I forbade you to play tennis. Why did you lie to me?”

I remember that I stood there like a Steadfast Tin Soldier and with tears in my eyes repeated insistently that I would train anyway. I guess I put a lot of certainty and stubbornness into my words, because my mom understood right away that a ban would not help, it would just worsen the situation. So, focusing her attention instead on the coach, she stated his obligations in an official voice. She said: “You are required to receive permission for training from my daughter’s doctor.” To which my coach said: “Of course. Once a month every athlete must get a medical check-up, after which I will know about the doctors’ conclusions – to allow practice, to forbid it, or to implement something recommended by the doctors. Please, don’t worry.”

When the coach left, I felt so overjoyed, that I no longer needed to lie, that I didn’t need to hide the tennis racket I was so proud of. My mom asked me: “How’s your heart? How are you feeling?”And these, probably, were the most wonderful questions – they brought me closer to my mom, and allowed me to do something I enjoyed so much. I ran outside, dug my racket out from the snow, ran back home, and showed it to my mom. I guess my face was lit up like a shining light, because my mother smiled and, without saying anything, continued with her housework.

So from the third grade, I was a pretty busy kid: school, tennis, and music. I had enough time to do everything. Everything was going well. I think that God from birth made me disciplined, organized, and