A Mother's Tears • Ch. 3 of 16

Everything Passes Like a Dark Cloud

The flight to the States was surreal for Gabriela, knowing she’d soon be in a completely different country than the one she’d known her entire life. She arrived safe and sound, making her way through the Pacific Northwest. Upon reaching her temporary home in Portland, she quickly decided that she’d be staying only a month before returning back to Romania. She didn’t click with my father’s family. They didn’t like that she was brought up Orthodox Christian while they were Pentecostal. That didn’t stop them from trying to give her a decent trip on Marcel’s utmost request.

When dinner would be long over and with Gabriela in her second trimester, she’d experience strong stomach pain from being so hungry. She never truly felt comfortable there—, so instead of searching the kitchen, my mother would sit out in the backyard on a little bench, pick blackberries off of a tree in the corner, and eat them quietly by herself. Being so far away from home, she couldn’t have been more lonely than in those moments of complete solitude.

It was on a beautiful Sunday afternoon that my mom and my father’s relatives were headed to the local Romanian church in their neighborhood. It was customary for everyone to stand outside for another hour after the service to catch up and talk amongst themselves. A couple with wide smiles approached my mother and began a friendly conversation, knowing she was soon heading back to their homeland.

“You’re Gabriela, right?,” the woman asked. My mom acknowledged as much and continued to stand there, surprised at their warmth. “So you’re going back to Bucharest next week?,” they asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Wow—, we have so many friends still living there. And what about your husband, is he going back with you?”

“Oh, he’s already there waiting for me.”

“Who is your husband anyway?” My mom told them, knowing Marcel was better known by his pen-name. The couple looked at each other and then back to Gabriela.

“He’s one of our favorite authors,” they said, completely stunned. “We have a quote of his hanging on our wall at home—, ‘totul trece ca un negru nor—,’” which translates to ‘everything passes like a dark cloud.’ My mother instantly recognized it and was just as shocked as they were.

“I love that line,” she proudly said. They invited her over for dinner at their place later on in the week but even so, my mom never saw them again as she’d left shortly thereafter.

Intricate Techniques

Gabriela returned back home and was immediately interrogated by the Securitate upon her arrival.

“Where did you stay while in America?,” they asked her from their windowless room of intimidation. “Who did you stay with? What did you talk about?” On and on this went for a good amount of time before they finally turned their attention toward asking about my dad. “We know Marcel likes vodka—, we need to know his favorite brand.” My mom tried her best to stay calm, but the questions were becoming increasingly ludicrous. Once the secret police finally finished up their business, Gabriela was let free. Not a month passed by before another random officer knocked on my father’s front door.

“Marcel!—, I came to talk with you,” he said with a smile while holding my dad’s favorite brand of vodka. He invited himself in and began chatting up Marcel like old friends. All the while, shots of liquor were poured out one after another in hopes that my father would somehow make the mistake of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and finally get in trouble for his unpopular political views. This is how communism worked in those days.

Downstairs from his apartment was my father’s photography studio. On top of being a gifted writer, Marcel also had a keen eye behind the camera. Gabriela would often come over directly after work to help him develop new pictures he’d taken. Though the studio was open for only four hours everyday, my father’s friends would start showing up one by one for the upcoming night an hour before he’d close it down. They’d all go out to the finest restaurants, have fun, speak politics, and go back home in their own cabs at the end of the evening. Marcel was his friends’ go-to person when any need arose.

The Circle of Life

A few months later, thick ice covered the streets and sidewalks, the biting wind blew in every direction—, it was one of the coldest blizzards my family had ever witnessed on the fifth of February in 1986. I was hours away from being born. My mother had hugged me in her belly for a full nine months and now I was finally on the way. They called the hospital to have an ambulance come out but none would dare drive in that weather. They called another hospital and another but nobody would dispatch a thing. Finally, at eleven-twenty at night, my mom gave birth to a twelve-pound baby boy. I was so big that every doctor working that night came to my mother’s room to see me. Gabriela held me up through the glass for all to see on the other side. Later on in the night, the nurse who had to make sure the newborns were properly fed came in with two babies on one arm and myself on the other, as she couldn’t fit another beside me. I asked my mom one day; “What did you guys do once you got back home with me?”

“We celebrated,” she proudly said. I was raised by the entire family—, my mother, father, aunt, cousins and grandparents. I was truly loved. My favorite cousin would read me stories at night before sleep. My grandmother would show me how a simple thread could make a button spin if you pulled on both ends. My father made sure I was always fed, bathed, and laid down in my carriage in the safest room of the house.

It was sometime in April of that year—, I was three months old—, when my aunt stormed into our living-room from her shift at the city hospital.

“Everyone take these—!,” she quickly said, holding out a bag of pills she’d just gotten from work. In moments, the television shed light on what’d happened. An explosion at a nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine—, thousands already infected from the astronomic levels of radiation—, many dead, many more on their way. The newscasters repeated themselves over and over;

“Every citizen needs to go to the hospital and be administered five individual pills to be taken immediately.” That was enough to cause mass panic. My aunt relayed the scenes;

“Everyone was climbing over each other to reach the front windows where they were handing out the medicine—, it was pure chaos!” Chernobyl would go on to claim more than half of my family with cancer. Its first signs were of my grandfather grabbing his abdomen in excruciating pain. “You need to see a specialist,” my aunt advised. Not long after, that’s exactly what he did. Test after test, he endured a series of examinations, uncertain what the results would show. Finally, they came in without a sliver of doubt; intestinal cancer. They’d need to open up his stomach and try to quell the spreading disease. He laid under bright operating lights while his family waited anxiously in the hallway outside. My mom saw a nurse exiting the room and ran over to hear the news.

“Please...,” she pleaded, “do everything you can to save him. No matter the cost, no matter how much money it’ll take, please save my father.” She barely spoke as a thick veil of tears covered her eyes. Marcel stood by her side, comforting his desperate wife.

“I’m sorry madam—,” the nurse replied. “There was nothing we could do.” The doctors sowed my grandfather back up and let the man rest as much as possible. Even though they’d cut most of his intestines out, there was no stopping the disease. It ravaged his body, his future, and his family—, everything in its path, it’d decimate down to ash.

Saying Goodbye

The funeral was an extremely somber affair. There was an open casket which sat at the front of the line of people prepping to say their final goodbyes. When Gabriela’s turn came around, she just looked down at her father’s face and gently brushed his white hair back from his forehead, bending down to kiss him one last time. This made my aunt burst out into tears—, knowing how much her sister loved their dad.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried out in front of everyone, “I didn’t mean to lie to you,” her words directed at my grandfather. “All those times I told you that you’d be okay, I knew. Deep down I knew—,” she didn’t have to finish her thought. The onlookers tried their best to comfort the poor woman while my mom continued onward with her weary state.

Back home, the preparations for the family and friends-gathering were wrapping up. There was a big meal to be had by all who’d gone to the funeral and plenty of tables set up to seat the entire crowd. Gabriela sat down, not knowing what was going on or how she should act—, she was too fatigued from emotional exhaustion to be mentally present. There she stayed, looking down at the food placed right in front of her, not touching a single bit. Marcel was nearby, trying to get her to eat, trying his best to show some support given the situation. At some point soon after, her memory gives out and she remembers no more. She fell unconscious and didn’t wake back up until later the next morning.

Christmas, Part 1

Christmastime came around when I was three years old. Having no recollection of this moment, my mom fills in the gaps and tells me the story. I was celebrating the holiday season with my family when night fell on our small countryside city. It was lively and festive in our little home—, cookies, lit candles, and carolers filled the scene. We had a beautifully decorated tree and tinsel surrounding our living-room. It was almost midnight and well past my bedtime when there came a knock on the front door. In walked my dad—, dressed up from head to toe like Santa Claus and carrying a huge bag slung over his shoulder.

“Where’s Andrei?,” he asked in a disguised voice. Though I was too young to understand what was happening, I came face to face with the jolly man I had no clue was really my father. “Do you know any songs?,” he asked me. Kids rarely went long without learning a few verses of some random children’s tune they could recite. He finally reached into his bag of presents and gave me as many toys as he could fit inside it. After he left our house, my mom tells me that he walked over to the neighbors’ home who didn’t live as nicely as some of the other people in town. He surprised them with a fully decorated Christmas tree and gifts just like he did for us. That was my father’s character—, to always give and help others. Even so, my mother began suffering from a slight depression. Everything looked picturesque from the outside—, but Gabriela felt numb on the inside. She had fallen in love with my father’s intellect and wit but soon, his drinking and overbearing attitudes would become too much for her to handle, understandably.

“He stopped laughing,” my mom told me. “He didn’t like me laughing either.” I don’t remember many things about my dad, but one of the characteristics I never saw was his jealousy toward my mom. Still, she couldn’t have any close friends, as Marcel would always criticize their relationships.

Their marriage was complex; my mom loved Marcel—, but he stopped having fun long ago. Gabriela couldn’t take much more of it. There are countless pictures of my mom during that time in her life and she isn’t smiling in any one of them. Though she was a happy mother, she was a depressed wife. The days continued on and her fire inside raged like mine would so many years later. We shared the same sentiment at different stages of our journeys; to be so wrapped up in the everyday regimen that one would forget what made them an individual to begin with. She felt it because of my father, I’d feel it because of my melancholia. Either way, we were spinning on similar wheels in separate timelines. What was she to do but go on as planned? The only escape was a literal one—, from the scenery and atmosphere of the past forty years. She needed a reshaping of her reality. I’d later understand what that truly meant. I was still three years old when the moment finally came that changed everything—, it’d go on to force my parents out of their home country once and for all, altering their lives forever.