When We Were Nine

His smile!  That’s what I noticed first about Sergei Kourdakov on the day we met.  I was caught off guard by his friendliness and kind demeanor.  When he shook my hand, he didn’t let go.  He kept holding onto my hand.  But it was his smile that captivated me.  He never stopped smiling.

As I got to know Sergei better, I had a hard time grasping how he could be so happy.  Sergei lost both parents at a very young age and was raised in Soviet Union orphanages.  I realized it was his choice to be happy.  He was resilient—he had the capacity to cope positively with stress and adversity.

As I was writing A Rose for Sergei, I thought about how very different our lives were growing up.  Sometimes I wondered where Sergei and I were at the exact same time in our childhood.

From Sergei’s book:    

One day in 1960, when I was nine years old, the director of Number One came to me and said, “Kourdakov, get your things packed, you’re going to a new children’s home.” 

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Not far away.  In Verkh-Irmen.”  I didn’t know Verkh-Irmen from Moscow and was a little afraid.

-Sergei Kourdakov, The Persecutor (Chapter 5, pg. 42)

* * *

In 1960, when I was nine years old, I lived on a U.S. Air Force base in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  My father was a fighter pilot and my mother stayed at home taking care of five children.  Our home was filled with love and happy times together.

One of my favorite things to do was to ride around the base on my bike.  I loved the freedom and the feel of the cool wind whipping through my long hair.  I felt safe and secure in the confines of the guarded base.  One day when I was riding my bike, the hem of my jeans got caught up in the bicycle chain.  The pull of the chain yanked my leg back and I flipped over hard onto the street.  I held back the tears as I tried to pull my jeans free.  I was more afraid than hurt, worried about how to get home.  But I knew this was only temporary.

The uncertainty in Sergei’s life was a constant factor that he lived with, whereas my life was stable. 

 

Even though our paths were very different, they led us to the same place in time.