Our Daughter's Russian Family, Page 8

Postscript: Zhanna

On March 7, 2001, I resent my letter and photos in Russian, using a translator living there (see below). On March 25, 2001, I received a letter and photographs from Ilka's birth mother, Zhanna. We have since exchanged several sets of letters. I have asked if I can speak of our correspondence publicly, in the hope it might encourage others. "Yes" she says, and adds, "I am very thankful such a person as you exists."

Zhanna relinquished her baby only because of the poverty a broken marriage led to. She writes "If I had been able to provide for the child, if I had known that staying with me the child would be fed, dressed, I would never have left her." She writes "I dreamt of earning much money and taking her back from the baby home." But this dream stayed just a dream.

She writes "After I gave birth to her I cried a lot because it was so hard to leave my flesh in the maternity hospital. I just did not want to live." She "had an opportunity to see the baby but somehow I was afraid of it." She was allowed to name the baby, and that was a small comfort to her. She remembers signing the documents, but doesn't remember quite how. "I was in such a queer state, I wrote down what I was told to." She wasn't told the baby was taken to another city after birth, she wasn't told that a court proceeding took place.

Zhanna writes "Before you wrote to me I had not known how Lena felt, but I thought she was alive. I felt terrible being without her, and used to cry. I could not get rid of thoughts of her...I thought she was still in the baby home" (in her home city. In reality the baby was first in a city 60 miles distant, then with us in the United States.) When someone called from her old address and told her there was a letter for her from overseas, she went at ten o'clock at night to get it. She writes "I just could not wait, I wanted to read it and have a look at the pictures, and my hands were shaking when I took the letter."

She thinks the baby looks just like her father, the man she loved and hoped to marry. She says he is a man who is tall and humorous and loves to read books. She tells me she knew his mother well, that they took strolls together with her two children. That his mother used to be an accountant, that she sings very well, that she hoped her son would stay with Zhanna. But it did not happen.

Zhanna tells me she is trained as a tailor, and her brother now studies to be a psychologist. Her parents sound like decent, hard working people, who have taken her and her two children in after her marriage failed. Her mother was hospitalized for a stroke not long ago, though she has recovered now. I am glad for all of our sakes I found Zhanna now.

Zhanna sends me beautiful drawings of birds, insects, flowers. She tells me she draws such things at home for her children, so they may color. She asks so little of me, just the opportunity to write, to receive pictures and news of the little girl.

ARTIST: ZHANNA 40% of original size Used with permission

She tells me her family and her mother especially, send "much love" to the child, and our family. She gives me Lena's paternal grandmother's name and address, and thinks this singing, kind woman would like to correspond with me. She asks for so little, and thanks me again and again for writing.

I tell her that somehow, someway we will all meet. I tell her she can see this little girl as long as she wants. There will be no need to be afraid.

And I thank her, and send much love.

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Contact information for translator:
Victor Sluczewski, Russian translations

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