The story of my grandmother. Before the war she met a man. I dreamed of getting married in the future. But like many others, the war separated them. He went to the front, she stayed in the rear.



My grandmother’s father was a native, and my mother was not a maid. Here, according to the grandmother, she opened the envelopes sealed with soap, and read their correspondence, giving her an opened mail.



One day the letters stopped coming. She wrote to him, but he did not respond.



The war ended. Years have passed since their last meeting. There were never letters.



I saw pictures of my grandmother in her youth. She was very attractive, so they just came home to marry the villagers. Just come here. Her grandmother was so educated that she called her father YOU until her death. I remember it well. I think that’s why she didn’t resist her father’s will, and she put her tongue under her mother-in-law. I don’t remember that very well from her story. So she married my grandfather. Three children, a bunch of grandchildren... They lived not soul to soul, but the household was conducted and grandchildren were raised.



One day in 1988, my grandmother visited us. We lived in a city 160 km from its station. She left us on the train. Traffic car, side car. Nearby was a couple, a husband with a wife and a man, who from the very beginning met and had an unforced conversation. From their conversation, the grandmother heard that the man was in the sanatorium and is returning home. And I also heard the story from how he fought on the front, how he was wounded and got to the hospital. How I lost my love.



I’ve always been stunned by my grandmother’s memory. She could have been searching for hours for a wallet or glasses, a key to the shell, but some things she remembered as if she had repeated them before going to bed.



Then my grandmother asked:

In which part have you fought?

At eighteen and what? Answered the man.

Are you not Sasha Colodin? She answered.

How are you...? from where? ... he was stunned.

“I am Maria Radionova,” the grandmother replied.

I don’t know what was happening there at that moment. Every time my grandmother tells me about this, I hold back my tears. I want to shrink. They hugged and cried. Crying and hugging.



After forty-five years and most of their lives, they discover that everything could have been different... So many questions, so many answers that they never hoped to get. Never ever...

Cognac and sausages appeared on the table.

From his story, the grandmother learned that he had received a letter from her mother-in-law that she was sick (I don’t remember why) and died. He was wounded shortly afterwards and sent to the hospital. He did not receive letters. They considered each other dead.



Time was implacable. After one stop, my grandmother had to leave. He asked her to leave her phone, but she refused. My grandfather was jealous.



So they said goodbye on the railway platform and did not see each other again.