Linişti şi nelinişti

“He went to school. That’s why he died. If he wouldn’t have studied so many years he’d still be alive, helping me around and raising his children”, says Eudochia Motco, the mother. She is 83 and in about four hours her youngest son, Filaret, is going to be buried.

Eudochia barely moves her feet because of a congenital condition, but she refuses my help when going to the other room where the sealed casket is placed. She won’t be able to go to the cemetery and she wants to spend any available moment close to her last born.

Before coming to the funeral I expected to see Eudochia crying, but she has no more tears. The fire that burned down her house two months ago dried them up.

“Last Sunday, when he called me as usual, Filaret promised he would come visit us for Easter. He kept his word”, she says while someone from the family is pulling a chair close to her. She takes her seat slowly, gently touches the UN flag that covers the coffin and goes on: “He also said he will stay two more years in Afghanistan, until he would be able to save enough money and rebuild the house.”

I am looking at her other four children – two boys and two daughters – who bow their heads. Ion, the first born, can’t stop his eyes from weeping. He was the one saving his mother from fire.