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“Saturday, June 15th, 1943, would be a day that I would never forget. After a long night’s sleep, I started the day with a smile on my face. On that day, I planned to swim in the river with a friend. But first, after I awoke, I was to do all the chores in the house, tidy the garden and help dad with ground work. After all I could go out with my friend. My friend and I had planned to go to the center of town to get something to eat. While walking through the town we saw people shouting about war with Germans and calling every male person to join the army. At that time I was too young to realize what difficulties I would face,” said my grandpa, as he sipped his hot tea and munched on some candies. He always used to tell me his life-story while sitting in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea in the late evenings.
Grandpa is one of the people in my life who has had a great influence on me. He brought me up as a sensitive, cheerful, sensible and trustworthy person. My grandpa, Bayram, is pretty tall for his seventies. Moreover, he is lean and has short grey hair. Granddad has blue eyes, rarely encountered among our people. He tends to wear classic clothes like trousers and shirts. Grandpa tries to help everyone who is in need. What’s more, this help is disinterested: Grandpa is so generous that he wants to share what he possesses with others.
Sometimes, when he is in a good mood, he talks about the past. Once, I listened to the story of his life and it affected me so much that when the time came to choose a topic to write on, I decided to share his experiences: “At that time I was too young to realize what difficulties I would face. Later, when my friend, Sultan, and I came back home we realized that my father and grandpa were gone! Mom told us that they had gone to attend a meeting in town which was due to begin in an hour. My friend and I rushed to our bikes and rode to the meeting.
“We knew that we wouldn’t get a chance to get in. That is why we decided to watch the meeting from the window. I sat on Sultan’s shoulders and was able to watch it all from the beginning. Even though I couldn’t hear anything our men were talking about, by the end of their gathering I knew that most of them, excluding the elders and young boys, would be going to fight the Nazis.
“When Dad returned home, our family had a serious talk about what we would do when he went to war. Our family consisted of several children of whom I was the oldest! I was just thirteen years old and it fell upon me to be responsible for the entire house’s chores. After a couple of days, Dad went to war and difficult days came in to my life. I had to take care of my siblings, do all the chores, earn some money to help Mom and also study. It was really hard to manage work and school together, but I tried to do my best.
“Time passed by very quickly; since Dad’s departure, almost one year had elapsed and was behind my shoulders. My sisters and brother grew; they were soon able to help me with the housework. Sometimes, without Mom’s permission, I would miss school to help our farmers “bring some bacon home”. Month after month, we barely escaped starvation; we were constantly trying to make ends meet.
“That winter, in the middle of December, Mom got sick. She was rarely able to get up from bed. Even so, she continued trying to help me and took care of the little ones. I tried to study hard so as not to upset her because she would always repeat Lenin’s famous words: Study, study and again study.
“At the end of December, close to the winter holidays, my sister came to school. She told me the worst words I have ever heard in my life: our dear mommy had died from the flu. Suddenly, it seemed to me that the sky had come crashing down on my head and all around me I heard terrifying, near-screams telling me that it was my entire fault.
“When I came back home I saw my sisters and brother sitting around Mom and crying quietly. I stood up in a stupor; I didn’t know what to do. All I wanted was to sit with them and cry together with them, but the other side of my brain wasn’t willing to release my emotions. It “told” me to tell them that we should move on.
“What I did next is still embarrassing to me today. I took them all into another room and left them there without any explanation. After that I washed Mom and ran to grandma’s house and told her what had happened. She took all the kids to her house and left me all alone.
“The next morning we had a funeral ceremony, when it was over we came home together and told the kids that mom had gone far away and she would never come back. I tried not to think about this shameful action; all I allowed myself to think about was how to help my sisters and brother to not feel alone.
“When I finished school, my grandma told me to leave our small town and get a higher education. She wanted me to be a good teacher. I didn’t complain. I went to Kazan, Russia, with a couple of friends. We were the first Turkmen to apply to attend school there. We studied hard and successfully graduated. I tried to live there for couple years, but my heart and soul called me back to my homeland, to smell the blossoming trees, to feel the Turkmen soil under my feet.” Grandpa sat in silence for a few moments, as he always did, and then he continued his story.
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Yagmurov Farhad
Farhad Yagmurov
Business Administration department in AUCA, Bishkek. Kirgizstan
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