Maria R. (EII) - The pain of separation

I worried about my nephew when he and his mother didn’t come to Nizhny but stayed in Ryazan. My brother brought photographs, and I saw those small, innocent eyes filled with longing and incomprehension: “Why?” I saw something piercing inside him, like a ringing string stretched too tight, its sound unbearable to the ear, bending a person to the ground. When my brother played with him, the boy would take his father’s hand, press himself against him, look into his eyes, and say: “Papa? Papa? Papa? Are you my papa?” As if he were testing how this word sounds in the air.

When my mother came home after visiting her grandson, my sister-in-law called her and told her that after she (my mother) left, the boy woke up from his nap and searched all the rooms silently, without asking anyone anything. My mother called her grandson later, and he asked her: “Where are you?” and then fell silent. Oh, how many sounds there are in that silence. It booms and drowns out everything. It is a cry of the soul.

I worry for the one whose place I somehow step into; I hear all his feelings, because they are painfully familiar to me. More than anything in the world, I would never want to remain that lonely — without understanding, without someone’s love. It lies in the soul like a stone, making it hard to breathe, and I want to say to my little nephew: “I love you so much! Don’t be afraid, don’t worry!” But it’s impossible to explain, to find the words to explain why things turned out this way — there are no such words for the soul.