I will tell you about my summer grandmother, the younger sister of my native grandmother. Immediately after school, she learned to be a field sheriff and went to war as a volunteer in the very first week. She served in mobile and front hospitals, did not get to the front only because of a very fragile composition, but was crushed by horrors and sorrow and without a front. Immediately after the war, she was sent to work as a doctor "for everything" in a small village in the northern Urals. There she had an office in the local school, where she vaccinated schoolchildren, treated the entire local population, sometimes took births and even, having obtained a trophy drill, sealed and treated her teeth. There was no other doctor 500 km away. At school, she had a tiny chamber where her box had a bed. During the winter holidays, the school had to be melted, and in the summer it was closed to the castle, and the grandmother came to visit us. So we called her summer grandmother.
Unlike her sister's masterpiece, she was completely helpless in the household, and she had no kitchen, she ate in the school dining room. But she taught us, grandchildren, to understand mushrooms and medicinal plants, to treat all diseases with simple means (other things she did not have), to respect nature and to predict the weather very accurately. Apply tires and treat and bandage wounds, make injections and not be afraid of blood. These skills were very useful in adulthood. Her longstanding dream was to break a small garden and grow useful plants. For many years, she spent the summer in our city. Finally, just before the reconstruction, she was allocated a tiny one and a piece of land. She stopped coming in the summer.
We grew up, got on our feet and wanted to take her with us forever, but she made us understand that she loves us very much, but her place in the Urals.
Many years have passed, our native grandmother has long been gone, and our parents have grown old, it became clear that if I do not visit my summer grandmother now, then it may not come. It was difficult for me to come to her with transport and visa, but everything was resolved. Finally, I get to the village, no one knew the exact address of the relatives, wrote to the school. And the village is no longer 30 bushes, but quite modern, with shops and roads, brick houses. How to search here?
I ask in the mail. There they were not surprised, called me by name, took me to my grandmother almost by the hand.
The old lady with burning eyes and a shameful smile is she. A small apartment, good furniture, an empty kitchen and a tiny refrigerator with a pack of milk and a pack of oil - this is the whole farm. A beautiful flower of medicinal plants. She is very happy with everyone, the pension is quite enough, sometimes she is invited to help in the hospital, especially at childbirth. These are the grandchildren and grandchildren of her first children. How without her!
She needs nothing. But I already know what lacks pensioners: they are accustomed to those products that they eat for many years, and buy a new type of cheese or sausage to try no longer risk. Go to the store, a great choice! We tested four bags. At the exit, a few boring young people simply take away these bags from us and quickly remove them. I stood straight, then realized that the summer grandmother here everyone knows.
Every ass here knows me in the face, it reassured me.
At home, she liked to try everything, but just forbade me to cook lunch.
And by evening the same aunt came from the post office and brought us lunch in a pot for two. Thro the week, various people came and brought us lunch. When I left, I went back to the mail. The postwoman told me that there were three such old men left: a teacher, an old local and my summer grandmother. And one and a half thousand families of the village take care of them, prepare their lunches, invite them to weddings and birthdays.
They saved lives and destiny. The true love of the people will not fail.