Tanya and Marina held each other’s hands, both feeling what it meant.
Tanya had lost strength as she was about to die, yet she continued to notice only her daughter, Verochka, starting a sketch of flowers on the table alongside her.
“Marish… Tanya asked softly. Please pay attention to Verochka. You are loved and welcomed in your own house. She is without anyone else. Promise me.”
Marina fought back her tears and gave a nod. “I promise. She will feel to me like part of my family.”
On the second day after that, Tanya passed away. Her last moments together were simple and with close ones. Verochka didn’t weep at the service, but hugged Marina’s hand tightly without saying a word.
In Marina’s home that night, the girl said, “My mother hasn’t left us yet.” There is sensing her presence.
Reaching out to her, Marina said, “She speaks to you from your heart now.” But Verochka was convinced, since she believed her mother was speaking to her inside.
Verochka then told Marina to take her to the train station on the next day.
The girl, steered by a sense other than logic, guided her along unusual paths and ended up at a familiar looking old building that was once a clinic for infectious diseases and is now a shelter.
She quickly headed toward the mattress stored underneath the staircase.
“Mom!”
Marina became motionless. There was a woman before me who was much like Tanya, only she seemed empty and confounded. The staff doctor said that the woman was located by the side of a highway without any ID and unable to speak properly.
There is a possibility that she had brain trauma, possibly from a clinical de.ath which followed.
When Verochka’s hand touched the woman’s, she didn’t seem to see me anymore. “Ve…r-oohk-ah?” she said gently. The name reminded Verochka and for the first time, she began to cry.
Tanya was pronounced dead, but she was revived before being taken to the morgue.
She suffered memory loss because of the lack of oxygen. Even though the rest of the world felt she had passed away, her daughter knew something different.
Marina made sure that the men got real medical assistance right away. Little by little, Tanya remembered familiar faces, like her own and places she remembered from before. It was not easy to recover. Sometimes she screamed at night, not knowing what was happening to her. Yet Verochka would hug her and say, “I’m right here with you.” You’re safe.”
Marina was there for them through the whole thing. She came by daily, pleaded with the doctors and gave the patient meals and a sense of comfort. “You aren’t by yourself,” she would tell me. You have found Verochka. I am here for you. Keep going.”
Once the city’s snowfall started, Tanya wasn’t a patient anymore—she was basically family to Marina. Verochka called out from the decorating process during the holidays, asking, “Can he see Mom is here?
Quietly smiling, Tanya said, “He does these days.”
Her coming back wasn’t a miracle, but it was love, trust and strong friendship that allowed it.
She had to take her time while rebuilding her life. Tanya had no records, no place to earn an income. Only a little recall and two people who trusted in her. Eventually, she got a job with a nearby charity. She would always put a small note in her boy’s lunchbag each morning saying “I’m proud of you.”
By the time their first anniversary arrived, Mother and Daughter moved to a little apartment of their own. Verochka read a poem to her classmates for Mother’s Day at school. Then, she said, “My mom went through dying once.” I loved her in return. And Aunt Marina is also a mom.
Two years have gone by now. Tanya finally felt confident enough, so she spoke at her school herself.
If the world darkens and you lose everything, love will help bring you back. She held on to me all the time. And my friend stood beside us until we could rise again.
Later, while we had tea, Marina gently said, “I believed I was helping you… However, you may have saved me as well.
Tanya watched her little girl asleep in her arms. She’s the thread that ties us all together, Mama whispered. You—you were the thing that stopped us from falling apart.
It hadn’t been an easy life. They had found resilience and a sense of connection and it allowed them to enjoy love and a proper home again.
These days, Tanya was living rather than simply being alive.