“I want you to know that we are ready to be there for as long as necessary”

Parents used to gather in the beautiful building of the former manufactory. Quiet and concentrated, they lit large and small candles and carefully pasted photographs to large sheets of white paper adorned with huge paper flowers. Photographs of their children playing, laughing, living… The lobby is calm, adults – mothers, fathers, grandparents – are seated on chairs. And children, big and small, run away to the second floor, where there is a separate program for them: clowns, treats, games. Cheerful fuss and laughter are the only things that can be heard now on the ground floor, where adults continue to gather. They talk quietly to each other, as it should be in the theater. But as soon as the first words sound from the impromptu stage – the organizers just talk about the program – many tears begin to run down their cheeks. Also quiet.

What is happening here today is called Memorial Day. It is organized by the Vera Hospice Assistance Fund for the relatives of those children who were under the care of the children’s field service and died of an incurable disease a year (or a week, a month …) ago. The Foundation does this for the sole purpose of being close to a family that has lost a child. To somehow reduce the pain, despair, fear.

The day starts with a theatrical performance. Young and very handsome guys are coming out of Dmitry Brusnikin’s workshop. The audience applauds them, and they applaud the audience: parents, grandparents. “We thought about whether we should start with a performance, and now I understand what is needed – just to give myself time to breathe,” says Nyuta Federmesser, president of the Vera Foundation. It didn’t work to breathe. Nyutin’s voice trembles; she cries, retelling the words of one mother: “I thought that I would come to my daughter for graduation, for a wedding, I would pick her up from the hospital, but I came here.” A few dozen more parents, doctors, coordinators of the field children’s service came here … Nyuta names the departed children, but I’m afraid that the list will never end. And when it does end, Nyuta adds four more names – four children died on the eve of Memorial Day. “No words can express the love we have for you. Your children have given us much more than we could have imagined, they have made us better. You and I are united by a knowledge that others do not have, and we must live life ten times stronger for them. Celebrate holidays, go to the theater, cinema, feel sharper, live sharper. Your children made us not give up, taught us to separate the important from the unimportant. I am very glad that you all happened in our lives. And I am happy to see so many dads: thank you for finding the strength to come here, thank you very much.

Nyuta utters these words surprisingly bravely, standing in front of her parents, on whose cheeks endless tears flow. She reads letters from hospice staff about children who have just become their patients (they invariably begin with the words “we have a new baby”), shares what her parents write to her. And also – invites adults to the microphone. And they come out! To thank, to share joy, to talk about the children who were born “after”. Or they remember the departed sons and daughters: how they were not afraid, how they asked to give birth to a brother or sister later, how they bequeathed to buy a dog or left their toys as a legacy to other children.

It’s cold and windy outside. But everyone is happy to go out into the yard. We have to release white balloons in memory of the children. And they will fly away into the cloudy sky, picked up by the wind from a hundred outstretched arms. Probably, in that very “beautiful far away.”