In the middle of zero years, I went daily to work from a small town to the regional center. The job of a regular news site correspondent was not easy. Almost all the time on your feet, wandering around, looking for addresses without navigators and Google maps, which then and dreams were not. He rushed to the opposite end of the city, wrote down what he needed — and back to the editorial office, rather write news before competitors gave it. All day long. Because the bulk of the salary was royalties. You write more, you get more. The wolf’s feet are fed.
We managed to get 200 dollars a month. For the life of a family with two young children, this “wolf” money was enough with great difficulty, and often not enough. My wife didn’t work, and our child with autism had not yet received a disability pension. In general, they lived, counting pennies and saving literally everything.
On the eve of St. Nicholas Day, I received a fee. A little more than usual, I managed to run a lot. After work, I had to stop by a specific pharmacy for medicine for a child, and then I wanted to go to the temple. On the subway decided to save, went on foot, close — 25 minutes for the entire route.
I go, I do not notice the frost, I think about what gifts and treats I will buy for the children, how they will be happy.
In the pharmacy, when he paid at the checkout, the phone rang — his wife. You picked up the phone, but you won’t be chatting in front of the window or behind the customer line. Scooped off the counter for change and medication and went out, pocketing everything. And he automatically stuck his wallet with a salary not in the inner pocket of the jacket, but in the outer, invoice. And he went, slowly, towards the temple through the busy city center in the thickening twilight.
I reached for my wallet only in the temple, at the candle shop.
No wallet. Only a neatly cut pocket of the jacket sways from the draft with a patch of black fabric. Just as black as I felt at that moment.
Goodbye, gifts, treats and joyful sparkles in children’s eyes.
More for order than with hope, walked the entire route back, scanning the eyes of the hammered snow mockingly shimmering in the light of the lanterns. I didn’t, of course. The cesspool of change from pockets — just on the subway and the bus. There’s no money at all at home. Well, at least I had time to buy the medicine.
It took about two hours to get home. All the way I was thinking about what words to find for my wife and how to explain to the children why Dad didn’t bring anything.
And near the house, I usually looked into the street mailbox — is there anything there?
Got it. Letter. Many stamps, return address in English… Wow! It was written by the son of a white immigrant, an elderly man from the United States, with whom we had previously corresponded on the Internet. So why did he ask for my postal address?
I open the envelope — inside a postcard and… a $10 bill. Congratulatory note: «This is for sweets for your children from Grandpa Nikolai.»
Yes, this good man was called Nicholas. Unfortunately, he’s gone. I remember him in prayer. And I remember the $10 that saved us, not so much from hunger, but from black despondency, despair and quarrels. And the feeling that I experienced in the soul, no money can buy.
Author: Anton Lebedev
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Soul investment!
Orthodox stories from life
