Monday, October 8, 2012

In Memoriam -- Serafima

One year ago today my mother-in-law passed away in Moscow at the age of 65. The one year anniversary is important to Russians, so though no one reading this knew her, I thought it important to my wife to have a tiny memorial here for Serafima.

She's the one in the picture on the left, as well as the young girl in the other photo. Ironically, her father Luis in the photo on the right was born in California and lived there until he was 15, when the Great Depression led his family to return to Russia...where he was promptly sent to the gulag. But he survived, thank goodness, or I would never have my current family.

Sima (as we called Serafima) was such a sweet woman. I always half-joke that my mother-in-law loved me more than my real family did. For a guy who was stealing away her eldest daughter to live outside of Russia, she treated me so kindly.

She wasn't much of an optimist, as the following story will show. Sima was debating one day with her neighbors, who were friends. She said that the American boy whom her daughter was dating would never marry her. Her neighbors, who had never met me, insisted that it was true love and of course I would marry Victoria. So they made a bet (that I didn't learn about until years later) -- if I didn't marry Sima's daughter, the neighbors would have to buy Sima a new telephone, while if I did, Sima would have to give the neighbors the chairs from her kitchen table.

Imagine my new wife's shock when she returned for the first time to her mother's apartment to find a table with no chairs.

You left us way too young, Sima.


9 comments:

  1. Very sorry for the loss of such a special woman. She sounded like a character. (And an honorable character if she followed through on giving the neighbors her chairs.)

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  2. Thanks, Alex. Though my Russian isn't good enough, it never once stopped her from trying to communicate with me.

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  3. What a great story. This is one of your posts that reminds how large the world is, but how there are so many things we all share like love of family. Sorry your family lost such a special woman.

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  4. Great tribute; and a bet I'm sure Sima didn't mind losing.

    .......dhole

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  5. That is an excellent way to remember loved ones. May she rest in peace.

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  6. Oh...a beautiful tribute. *Hugs to my favorite ambassador/movie star/amazingly hot fantasy writer.

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  7. Thanks everyone. Michael, you are too kind! On the wannabe movie star front, I spent 16 hours yesterday working on a new movie. I'm a featured extra in this one and in a good half dozen scenes (and a voice over). They made me shave, though, since we started in the 50s and ran through the 70s.

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  8. A very kind memorial to a women who was special in your life.

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  9. I'm so sorry for your loss, Ted. That said, I think what you've done here is a beautiful, touching gesture.

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