From a confused Soviet kid to a strong American woman

As a youngster in Soviet Russia, I was tormented by a searing disgrace whenever I thought of my grandparents because they clearly avoided building communism.

Over a half-century later, in my sunny Miami home in America, I am ashamed of that shame.

I am talking, of course, about my maternal grandparents, Ksenya and Alexandr, who were born in the early part of the 1900s before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

I know nothing about my paternal grandparents; we have not kept in touch with them.

As for Ksenya and Alexandr, my maternal grandparents, I grew up around them. I watched them closely, as only kids who have so much time on their hands can do.

They often babysat me and my two-years older sister Natasha.

When I came into the world in 1959, Ksenya and Alexandr were both in their late fifties, and they looked ancient to me, of course. That wasn't an issue.

My concern was that neither of them took part in building communism; they just quietly ignored it, and, as a precocious seven-year-old, I was certain that they were making poor choices.

My dad was an engineer in a military factory, and my mom was a teacher. They made me proud.

As a typical Soviet youngster, I was fully indoctrinated. I marched and sang; I believed: communism had that bright future for me.

Yet, I was concerned that my grandparents, Ksenya and Alexandr never worked any government jobs and didn’t read newspapers. I frowned silently, of course. We never discussed politics.

My grandpa built houses for a living with a small group of buddies. They used the only building material available in Russia at the time -- heavy lumber.

Those houses had no indoor plumbing. The toilet was in a shed outside. Despite those shortcomings, somehow they were cozy homes.

My grandparents owned a house just like that, built by grandpa Alexandr, of course. I have a black and white photo of that house I cherish.

Oh, how I long to return to that house with the distinctive aroma of dry apples and a freshly baked pie just removed from the wood-burning stove oven.

My grandmother's home was warm and inviting. It may make me cry if I think of it now.

She was a noble soul -- always striving to see the good in people. She believed everyone, no matter their circumstance, deserved kindness.

When her son, my mom's younger brother, my uncle, got a high school girl pregnant, that teenage girl ran to my grandma for support. Of course, Grandma Ksenya embraced that poor girl and her unborn child, as only she could, and got them married. That baby girl that grandma saved grew up to be a prominent Russian lawyer.

Grandma Ksenya just fixed and mended everything, from relationship to our winter boots, everything was repaired and restored with great care. She was a grower. A nurturer.

I never remember her being depressed. She was busy. Always busy.

Not having a car was the norm in Soviet Russia. Nobody I knew owned a car. I remember walking everywhere with grandma.

We always carried a huge handbag with us. That was not a lady's bag. Those were strong Soviet women's purses to carry stuff in, lots of stuff, which is why they were so big.

As we walked along, my grandma would collect discarded timber along the side of the road – firewood for her stove, piece by piece, placing it in her ample tote.

I assisted, felt embarrassed, and hoped no one I knew would observe us yet still helped.

By collecting street lumber, a few rubles were saved. The firewood was costly. It was bought by the truckload. The harsh Russian winters were endless. For that big wood-burning stove in the center of the house, which was supplying heat and had a cooking oven inside, you needed a lot of wood. Oh, how I miss that fire!

The bread was baked in that oven. I never forget that smell!

I don't recall how it happened that I stopped believing in communism, but by the time the Soviet Union fell apart, I was already in Miami, married to a handsome American. Bye-bye, Russia!

Bye-bye to my fantasy world of the bright communist future.

It wasn't all peaches in the United States, though. My husband was diagnosed with RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy), and we were faced with a long battle before losing it.

It is only now, I realize, as a woman in my sixties, that it was those two stalwart grandparents of mine who helped me to hold on to my resilience in America.

It was my Ksenya and Alexandr who showed me how to live a good life no matter the circumstances. It was my Ksenya and Alexandr who, adopting the system of survival and living, found a way to overcome the limitations: they just lived their good lives as normally as they could despite all that came at them.

To this day I continue to hold on to their simple lesson: we need only do what we can, when we can, with what we have.

It is now I am proud of my rural Russian roots, which have taught me invaluable life lessons about hard work, determination, and self-reliance.

I wish my grandma could see me now.

It is your DNA, grandma, hard at work in my strong American body. I enjoy carrying heavy bags. I can stroll for hours.

I work for myself, just like you and grandpa did.

The only difference is you did it in Russia at a time when working for yourself was dangerous. In Soviet Russia, you could have been imprisoned for doing your own thing like that.

I think my grandparents were not bothered by the authorities because their earnings were quite modest. Their work was plain and simple -- hard honest work. There was never anything stolen. What a concept.

Look, grandma. I am doing now the same thing in America. You’d love it here. Oh, how successful you’d be here, grandma. With your resilience, and can-do anything attitude.

It is your Russian genes of resilience are kicking my butt these days.

I live the way you’d want me to live. I am doing it in my new homeland, the United States of America. I wish you could see, who I became; the real me.