At the beginning of August last year, my dad said: “Enough. Get ready. Pack all necessary stuff, don’t go anywhere, stay at home and wait. The car will be always near the house, everything should unfold quickly and due to the plan. If it starts, we should rush you to the Maternity Home otherwise you give birth on the road”. I said: “OK, but the Maternity Home is within five hundred metres from our home. If needed, I can get there on foot. Daddy, I’ll go mad, if I sit on the sofa and wait”. Dad grasped the heart with the look as if the delivery has started. Mum dropped him valerian and let me out to celebrate my friend’s birthday.
August has always been the special month in our family. The calendar of birthdays in the dad’s study indicated that August is almost like New Year, only without the Christmas tree. Every day we had to congratulate someone on different holidays. In August dad looked closely at this whirl of celebrations and said: “Choose the day of your delivery, but you know the date I like”.
I was offered the day of railwaymen (after the quit of Military Transport Aviation Service dad has been working as a railwayman), the birthday of mum’s brother, sister, cousin, my close friend’s birthday, the day of Teacher’s Conference in mother’s school (don’t dare to say that it’s not a holiday, otherwise mother wouldn’t sue a new dress every year), Aviation Day and the closing day of the sea season which was concurrently the birthday aunt Tanya from Koktebel and quite often the day of Teacher’s Conference. What day my dad has chosen? Of course – Aviation Day. Who else should be born in the Aviation family unless new sky and planes lover? I pointed at the stomach and said: “Ok, dad, as you say, but he’s the only to decide”.
That August “New Year” I, being pregnant, celebrated to the fullest. Because one little boy decided not to hurry and chose the day, different from the one proposed by my dad and his granddad. This boy played pass on the Aviation Day (former August 18) and was born at the end of August, on the day of county’s birth.
Do you want to know how is it like to celebrate your birthday on August 24? Ask my son. He suffered all his school and childhood life because it was the time for his friends to spend with grandmothers or parents at the sea and on this day there was nobody of them in Kyiv. After all, it’s easier to be an adult. Being an adult, you don’t need to go to school or university on September 1, you can take the leave whenever you want and go to the sea even in October. And you don’t need to care about playing truant. And the most important – close friends are always near you to celebrate this day.
But these are the privileges of the adult life. In childhood, if you chanced to be born at the end of August you are doomed to celebrate this day at best with parents or worse with grandmothers because you are sent there for your summer holiday. When you’re three years old it’s good because you need only ice-cream, sweets, balloons and plenty of toys for a present. Preferably, the cars of different colours, shapes and brands. But when you’re twelve or fifteen?
Moreover, the son believed until he turned five that the military parade on the Kreschatyk established on his honour. Being six years old, he found out that it wasn’t just for him, it was was for the whole country. The disappointment was thundering. By the way, he didn’t become the plane lover. In the aviation family, the driver has grown up, who at the age of six sat at the wheel of an old Niva and brought me home, sitting on the laps of the husband of his godmother. I was sitting with the closed eyes and held breath. An adult man, smiling, pressed on the pedal and switched the gear meanwhile the kid stirred the wheel and felt confident on the streets of the small town in the North of Crimea. This driver still loves the cars, but the big ones and he still has a dream to drive in the real racing “Ferrari” in “Formula 1”.
I remember less from his life (how he inhaled and cried for the first time, for instance). I missed a lot because I worked overtime and I was seldom at home. But my big love is enough for his long adult life and even if he won’t need my advice and will say from time to time: “mum, don’t turn on the grandma, you aren’t the schoolmistress, I know everything and I’ll decide what to do”.
Now he’s far from me, but we talk every day at least in the regime “password – response” – “how are you – everything is OK”. I listen to his troubles, try to search for the right words of support, don’t undermine his emotions, try to explain what’s going on in his adult life. Sometimes I get scared. It happens sometimes that he speaks with my words. Merely the same. How it could be – I don’t understand but I know for sure that it’s something that I’m afraid to confess and that’s why I’ve never spoke it out and will never do it. Because I’m his mother and now I’m his the only support at this moment.
No, I don’t exaggerate. It’s the matter of fact. All “authorities” he worshipped as a kid, for the last four years fall down from their pedestals and turned into dust. The boy grew up and became a man. Adult and independent.
At the end of each August, I trace each minute of his birth and life in my mind because he changed everything around me, he spurred me on to do things completely unknown to me before. I crave to stay a worthy mother, not only loved but respected as well when I reach the old age (hope it won’t be soon). So, that I’m not the only one who is proud of his life but he who could always proudly say – this is my mum and she’s cool!
Happy birthday my personal August! Happy birthday, my Country! I’m happy to have both of you!
Olena Bogatyrenko