The Warmth of Her Hands

(In Loving Memory of my Mom)

Here you are no more, Mom… You were my rock, my inspiration, and an endless source of love. Just yesterday, your voice filled our home with warmth, and today I’m trying to piece together all our memories: the taste of your borsch, the comfort of your hands, your kind smile. Thank you for every story by the soft glow of the lamp at night, for your patience as you taught me everything, and for the strength with which you weathered life’s storms. Your faith and wisdom live on in me and in every day I now cherish twice as much. May you rest in peace, Mom. I will keep you in my heart always and never let your love fade.

"I am grateful to have had such a caring and devoted Mama, who raised six children—three sons and three daughters. My Mama was the one who mended our torn socks, cooked for all of us on a humble stove, washed our clothes and bed linens by hand, and hung them to dry on long ropes in our backyard. She knelt in prayer with us on the front porch before sending us to a communist school, and during church services, she kept all six of us together on a single long bench. She will forever be remembered as a loving Mama who always put her family first." by Peter Kulakov

"In my last memory of grandma, it is evening, I am in California, and grandma is worried that I don’t have a coat. We spent the past hour talking about family, Pushkin, prayer. After dinner, she tells aunt Elana, “someone get him a coat.” When I approach her bed, she laughs—with her usual gravel-toned tenor—and says I was worried you were cold. Then she squints a little and exclaims, “what is this mustache? Immediately, shave this mustache.”

In my first memory of grandma, I am running up a flight of cement stairs and their chalky scent is comfort. I am in Zaoksky and maybe four years old. In this memory, two, beautiful faces hold my attention: the face of my mother, and the face of my grandmother. In this memory, my mother would open our door and I would run up the stairwell, from one floor to the other, suspended between two worlds.

I am running up the stairs because, at the top of those stairs, a door would open, and backlit by afternoon light, stood grandma. It was the right apartment because a Persian-style rug hung from the wall and a beautiful woman placed a pair of slippers on the parquet floor. It was grandma’s apartment because I would see 3-liter jars full of milk, a cheesecloth at the rim.

I didn’t know what took me to grandma, but I always felt better in the patterned, carpeted stillness of her home. Some core need was always met. How this need was met always felt utterly new. It astonished me. I still remember the birthday her and grandpa handed me my present. I was disappointed that it was only a factory-wrapped confection, but the moment I grasped the plastic, I realized something strange. The packaging was heavy, sturdy. Inside: a metallic car, shining.

After we returned to Russia, I was a little older and began to see another side to grandma: Grandma The Disciplinarian. I was taught how to sit, where to put my feet, and how to stand with authority, without hunching my back. These were difficult years in our relationship. I remember one day in the winter, I caught a bronchial cold. We were walking down the street when she instructed me to not run so as not to get sweaty, but I found a piece of ice to kick and ran after it. Grandma handed me over to the discipline of grandpa.

Grandma wanted to keep me safe. She protected life because she valued life, knew that it was fragile. My father also knew this and told us the story of grandma throwing rocks near the train tracks, alerting him of the oncoming train. This was not because grandma was overly stern or opposed to playfulness. This tough spirit was survival, protection. Any hardness in her character only emerged, in precise proportion, to the brutality of the world.

In Oceanside California, grandma broke into blossom, grew young. She cultivated roses and showed everyone a photo of grandpa and her beside a deer. She loved the English phrase “I love you” and she would use this phrase often, especially with my girlfriend Simthana. There was only one word she hated in English “GOD.” “Oh I hate how they say “Gad.” How do you associate our heavenly Father with a vile reptile?

In America, grandma studied for her citizenship test and ached for 3-liter jars of still-warm cow milk. She watched Russian television, voted for Obama. During her stay at our home in Maryland, she had one mission: to be relentlessly helpful, to make sure I am fed with borscht, katleti, and porridge, of course, of the perfect consistency. And to ensure that I moved through the world with reverence, that I never hunch my back.

The years grandma became most present—most memorable to me— was the years after we lost grandpa. She taught me many things, but mainly, she taught me the difficult work of grief. She knew that in addition to comforting someone, there was a more difficult task. This task was lifelong. It was the task of accepting comfort, of accepting love. I still remember, decades ago, after her mother’s death, we drove down muddy roads in Zaoksky. She wept. Grandpa pulled her towards him.

In the years I lived in New York, I started to call her often, read her my poems, told her about my publications and awards. She had nothing positive to say, said they didn’t rhyme. I was frustrated and our calls decreased. I couldn’t understand why she would never praise my work the way grandpa did. I do remember how one evening—standing in the doorway of my parent’s bedroom—she said about my poems “a prophet is never acknowledged in his land.”

Years passed—and as with all resentments—I tired of holding it. I remember I was in California and I could not wait to see her. My friend was driving me through the sun-drenched orange groves to my aunt’s home near Redlands. It was December, 2022. After I crossed the path of a large bull dog, I approached her room. She sat holding a walker, undisturbed. In spite of her dementia, she recognized me—her voice robust, gravel-toned. Her spirit was young. We laughed and hugged, over and over. I held her silky, worn hands.

The care of those hands is inseparable from the brutality they survived. Those hands survived arctic wind chills near the Altai mountains. Those hands survived poverty, war, and famine; survived interrogation and dislocation. They survived childbirth and transatlantic travel; survived loss of parent, husband, homeland. To hold those hands was to hold history, a staircase—that like that staircase to her Zaoksky apartment—stood between two generations. And on June 14 at 9:01 pm, four days after my birthday, those hands unclasped for the last time.

It is much easier to recognize who someone is and what they mean to you by the contours, the imprint, they leave in their absence. For years, I did not understand the purpose of those difficult talks. All those talks about my posture, about the coat, about reverence served a purpose. They were teaching me something. They were teaching me how to inhabit the world—how to navigate life—without distortions. They were teaching me how to be——not just a writer—but a human being. They were teaching me how to age by growing younger.

All week, hot afternoons and rain. (For everything there is a season). I have opened my window and propped up a small painting of a birch field. (What gain have the workers from their toil?). I hear grandma’s gravel-toned voice echo from another room. (A time for every matter under heaven). I see her place the slippers on the floor. (He has put eternity into man’s heart). I put my coat on and stand upright (He has made everything beautiful in its time)."

"So much of my childhood is wrapped in the summers I spent under her care. I can still see us walking those dusty roads in Zaoksky, her hand in mine, stopping by neighbors for eggs, milk, and fresh vegetables. But those walks were never just errands—they were little pilgrimages of kindness. At every doorstep, she offered more than a greeting; she offered warmth, wisdom, and time." by Daniel Romanov