Epilogue

The book about Grandma (great) Manya has come to an end. I've shared the ten funniest and most iconic stories describing that legendary woman's character and essence. Of course, the image of my great-grandmother isn't limited to the pages of this collection. And I want to add a few more short fragments to add the missing pieces to this puzzle. So. Manya.

Manya was born on February twenty-ninth, but the year of her birth remains a mystery. It could have been 1900, 1904, or 1908. She, of course, had a passport, and the year of birth was indicated there. But, firstly, it was never shown to me personally. And secondly, after the Second World War, there was incredible confusion with documents. Manya lost her passport, and when she received a new ID, she somewhat understated her age. How do I know this? Well, mainly because the time frames in her childhood stories were jumbled. For example, one day, relaxing on a sun lounger on the veranda, she let slip that during the 1917 revolution, she was seventeen years old. And she was somehow too proud of this coincidence for it to be false. However, when I noticed it meant she was older than she said, Manya immediately stopped hearing me, asked me a hundred times what I said, complained about her hearing and masterfully changed the subject.

The hearing trick was her favourite chip. If any conversation took a turn in the wrong direction she would have liked, she would immediately stop hearing anything at all and say something like, "I can't make it out," or "You're squeaking like a mosquito, I can't hear anything." In fairness, I must admit my great-grandmother's hearing became worse over the years, and she even watched TV with headphones. However, everything wasn't as gruesome as the Manya tried to demonstrate at the advantageous moments.

But her vision over the years got worse and worse. The cataract progressed. It was strongly reflected in her postcards and garden diaries. Manya's handwriting became illegible. However, I received greeting cards from her until the last days, even when she lived half an hour from my place of work.

Another way to change the topic of conversation Manya used was to suddenly start to recite poetry or sing songs. In those moments, when the dialogue reached a critical point in her opinion, she suddenly asked: "Do you like Omar Khayyam?" And without waiting for the interlocutor's answer, my great-grandma was declaiming poetry. Omar Khayyam was chosen randomly by me and can be replaced by anything. Manya knew an incredible number of poems, stories and songs. I heard William Blake and Robert Burns in her performance. Moreover, I didn't even know the cited works belonged to them.

Manya also had a personal story with Vladimir Vysotsky. No, no, no romance. It's just the film "Dangerous Tours" was filmed in Odessa. The main character ("Georges Bengalsky"), performed by Vysotsky, jumps out in one of the scenes from Manya's window on Gogol Street. So she had the opportunity to feed the living legend dinner, and she loved to talk about it.

By the way, for some reason, I don't remember at all whether Manya was a good cook. But I remember very well the rose jam she often made. This was the most delicious rose jam I've ever tasted. At the dacha, there were several immense rosehip bushes. Every year, when they were covered with blossoming flowers, my great-grandmother armed herself with baskets and collected the petals. And every year, she cooked several jars at once, glued a white piece of plaster to each one, and wrote the date of preparation and the name of the person for whom the jar was intended. I always received my jar with the inscription: "To Mashenka."

Unfortunately, Manya's original recipe hasn't survived. She remembered it by heart, but the rest of my relatives, including me, didn't think of writing it down in time. We didn't have to make rose petal jam because each of us had these personalized jars. Manya took the secret recipe with her when she set out on her extraterrestrial journey. And no one has ever been able to repeat it.

Grandmother (great) Manya seemed to us as something eternal, like the sea (for example). In addition, she was fortuitous and always came out dry from the wettest waters. It was such an undeniable fact when she slipped on the wet kitchen floor, fell and broke her hip, it became something surreal. And when we were told the great-grandmother would never be able to walk again because her age was too high for successful bone fusion and surgery, no one believed it. It is impossible to acknowledge a person who has experienced an incredible number of dangerous situations can lose so stupidly. But Manya never got up. And for her, it was the worst thing that could happen to her. She felt like a bird whose wing had been cut off. A week before Manya left our planet, she told me about it. I remember that moment. She squeezed my hand and said, "I can't take it anymore. There's no reason to continue. I'm tired, girl."

I'm infinitely sorry I will no longer hear her songs, poems and tales. However, my faith allows me to know somewhere in one of the distant galaxies, Grandma (great) Manya collects petals of the cosmic rosehip, quotes Omar Khayyam, Blake and Burns and drives the local alien doctor to white heat. And it'll always be like this. Because Manya, she's eternal. Like the sea, for example.