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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s crying out there? Stepan, can you hear? In such dismal weather, someone is crying!<\/p>\n
\u2014 Probably it\u2019s just the wind howling, Katyusha. What tears could there be on a night like this\u2026<\/p>\n
I ran out onto the porch without even grabbing my scarf. The autumn rain whipped against my cheeks, yet I kept straining my eyes into the darkness.<\/p>\n
And suddenly \u2014 that sound again. Not the wind, no. Human sobbing, so faint, so vulnerable.<\/p>\n
At the bottom step lay a bundle, wrapped in an old scarf. Inside \u2014 a child, a boy of about three years old.
\nHis eyes were wide open, yet his gaze was empty. He didn\u2019t blink when I brought my hand to his face.
\nStepan came out, silently picked up the bundle with the little one, and carried it inside.<\/p>\n
\u2014 It\u2019s a divine decree, \u2014 he said simply as he set the kettle down. \u2014 Let\u2019s keep him.<\/p>\n
In the morning, we headed to the district hospital. Doctor Semyon Palych shook his head and sighed heavily:<\/p>\n
\u2014 He\u2019s blind. Apparently since birth. He doesn\u2019t speak, but he does react to sounds. His development\u2026 it\u2019s hard to say. Ekaterina Sergeyevna, you do understand, there are so many children like this in orphanages\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2014 No, \u2014 I replied softly but firmly enough to silence the doctor. \u2014 I don\u2019t understand. And I refuse to understand.<\/p>\n
Later, we completed the paperwork.<\/p>\n
Nina from the village council helped \u2014 a distant relative on my mother\u2019s side. They organized everything as an \u201cadoption.\u201d They named him Ilya \u2014 in memory of Stepan\u2019s grandfather.<\/p>\n
That day we returned home as a family.<\/p>\n
\u2014 How are we going to manage him? \u2014 Stepan stammered, awkwardly holding the little one as I opened the door.<\/p>\n
\u2014 We\u2019ll manage as best we can. We\u2019ll learn, \u2014 I replied, not fully trusting my own words.<\/p>\n
I had to leave my job at the school \u2014 temporarily, I thought. Ilya required attention every moment.<\/p>\n
He did not see danger, didn\u2019t know where the edge of the porch was, where the stove was.<\/p>\n
Stepan worked in the logging camps, coming home exhausted, but every evening he would create something for the little one \u2014 wooden handrails along the hut\u2019s walls, pegs with ropes in the garden so that Ilya could move around by holding onto the stretched cord.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Look, Ekaterina, he\u2019s smiling, \u2014 Stepan smiled for the first time since Ilya appeared, showing me how the little one was feeling his big, rough hand.<\/p>\n
\u2014 He recognizes you, \u2014 I whispered. \u2014 By your hands.<\/p>\n
The neighbors split into two groups. Some expressed sympathy, while others condemned. The first group sent children to help, brought milk and eggs. The others whispered on the benches:<\/p>\n
\u2014 And why do they need him? They\u2019re healthy themselves; they could have their own.<\/p>\n
That infuriated me, but Stepan wisely said:<\/p>\n
\u2014 They don\u2019t know, they don\u2019t understand. We didn\u2019t know either until Ilyusha appeared.<\/p>\n
By winter, Ilya began uttering his first words. Slowly, hesitantly:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ma-ma.<\/p>\n
I froze with a spoonful of porridge in my hand. In that moment, something inside me changed \u2014 as if a river that had been flowing in one direction suddenly reversed.<\/p>\n
I had never considered myself a mother. A teacher, a wife, a village woman \u2014 but not a mother. And now\u2026<\/p>\n
In the evenings, when Ilya was falling asleep, I would sit by the stove and re-read old textbooks, trying to figure out how to teach a blind child.<\/p>\n
Discoveries came gradually. I guided his hands over objects, naming them.<\/p>\n
I let him touch different surfaces \u2014 smooth, rough, warm, cold. We listened to the sounds of the village \u2014 roosters, cows, the creak of gates.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Don\u2019t lose heart, \u2014 Baba Dunya said as she brought a pail of milk. \u2014 God willing, he\u2019ll grow up. After all, blind children\u2026 have keener hearing and more sensitive hands. Who knows, he might even surprise everyone.<\/p>\n
\u2014 I\u2019m not losing heart, \u2014 I answered. \u2014 It\u2019s just\u2026 we don\u2019t know how. Nobody does. We simply love him.<\/p>\n
\u2014 And that\u2019s all he needs, \u2014 the old woman nodded, setting the pail on the table. \u2014 Love conquers all.<\/p>\n
By spring, Ilya was already following me around the house, holding onto my apron.<\/p>\n
He recognized Stepan by his footsteps, reaching out to him.<\/p>\n
And when the neighborhood children started coming into our yard, he laughed for the first time upon hearing them play tag.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Katyusha, \u2014 Stepan embraced me, watching as Ilya sat on the porch, listening to the children\u2019s voices. \u2014 I\u2019m thinking\u2026 it wasn\u2019t we who found him. He found us.<\/p>\n
Time passed. Ilya grew up, as all children do \u2014 remarkably fast. By the age of seven, he knew our home better than we did.<\/p>\n
He could walk from the porch to the shed without ever straying from his path. He recognized the trees in our garden by the texture of their bark. He helped me sort through potatoes, unfailingly picking out the rotten ones.<\/p>\n
\u2014 This one gives off a different scent, \u2014 he explained, setting aside a decaying tuber. \u2014 And if you tap it with your nail, the sound is muffled.<\/p>\n
Stepan built for him an entire network of guides \u2014 pegs of different heights all over the yard, rope paths, handrails.<\/p>\n
And I searched for ways to teach him reading.<\/p>\n
\u2014 How will you learn your letters? \u2014 the neighbors wondered. \u2014 Perhaps you don\u2019t even need it?<\/p>\n
I stayed silent. At night, I would carve letters out of linden wood \u2014 three-dimensional, with sharp angles and raised curves. I\u2019d hammer small nails into planks, stretch wire \u2014 forming lines. Though very simple, just a couple of words.<\/p>\n
Ilya ran his fingers over these homemade symbols, memorizing the shape of each character.<\/p>\n
The day he read his first word, Stepan brought an enormous pine board from the forest.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Let\u2019s make a desk for studying, \u2014 he declared, his eyes glowing. \u2014 With sides so that the textbooks won\u2019t fall.<\/p>\n
Official representatives learned about our Ilya when he turned eight. A commission from the district education department arrived \u2014 to check why the child was not attending school.
\n\u2014 Citizen Vorontsova, \u2014 began a stout woman in a strict suit, \u2014 do you realize that you are breaking the law? A child of school age is obliged to receive an education.<\/p>\n
\u2014 He is receiving one, \u2014 I indicated at our homemade alphabet, the exercise books with pages punctured where Ilya learned to write, pressing the paper.<\/p>\n
\u2014 But not from professional teachers, \u2014 she objected. \u2014 In our region there is a specialized boarding school for blind children. There you\u2019ll get professional care, proper methods\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2014 No, \u2014 I felt my face stiffen.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Think about it, citizen. He isn\u2019t even your blood relative. Why suffer so? They\u2019ll take better care of him there.<\/p>\n
I slowly stood up from my seat.<\/p>\n
\u2014 He\u2019s ours. And he will live a full life, not merely exist.<\/p>\n
They left, but I knew \u2014 they would return. Stepan was silent for two days, then began building an extra room onto the house.<\/p>\n
\u2014 For Ilya, \u2014 he said as he hammered in the first nail. \u2014 His own space. To store his textbooks.<\/p>\n
I was allowed to return to teaching at the school, and at home, I was given permission to educate Ilya myself. Every day after classes, we learned together. He absorbed everything instantly.<\/p>\n
Sometimes other teachers would come by; we managed to arrange lessons.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ekaterina Sergeyevna, \u2014 the school principal once said to me, \u2014 do you know that your boy\u2026 is special?<\/p>\n
\u2014 I know, \u2014 I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u2014 No, I\u2019m not talking about his blindness. He has an extraordinary memory. And his speech\u2026 How does a village child have such a vast vocabulary?<\/p>\n
Every evening I read to him. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov. Stepan brought books from the district library \u2014 where Anna Pavlovna worked, who became our protector.<\/p>\n
She would set aside the latest books for us, and when the first cassette recorder appeared, she began recording books onto tape.
\nIlya listened, memorized, repeated. His speech truly stood out from that of other children \u2014 unhurried, thoughtful, as if he tasted every word before speaking.<\/p>\n
In the village, everyone got used to him. The children no longer teased him, but ran toward him:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ilyukha, come with us! Tell us a story!<\/p>\n
He told them fairy tales \u2014 both those I had read to him and those he composed himself.<\/p>\n
He would sit on a log at the edge of the village, surrounded by wide-eyed village kids. Even adults would stop to listen.<\/p>\n
\u2014 You know, Stepa, \u2014 I said to my husband one evening, \u2014 it seems he notices more than we do. Just in a different way.<\/p>\n
\u2014 He sees with his heart, \u2014 Stepan nodded. \u2014 And we look with our eyes, yet don\u2019t always truly see.<\/p>\n
When Ilya turned seventeen, we sat together on the porch. I was mending Stepan\u2019s shirt,<\/p>\n
while Ilya ran his fingers over a book I had specially obtained for him \u2014 designed for the blind.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mom, \u2014 he suddenly said, \u2014 I want to write. So that others aren\u2019t afraid.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Write? \u2014 I pricked my finger with a needle. \u2014 You want to become an author?<\/p>\n
\u2014 Yes, \u2014 he turned his face toward me. \u2014 I want to tell the story of those who can\u2019t see. Yet still perceive the world. About you. About Dad. About everything you have given me.<\/p>\n
I looked at his face \u2014 lean, with high cheekbones, so reminiscent of Stepan\u2019s, though they were not related by blood. My son. Our son.
\n\u2014 I\u2019ll record every word you say, \u2014 I told him, squeezing his hand. \u2014 Every single word.<\/p>\n
The year 2025. Outside, spring resounded \u2014 noisy, ringing, with the cries of jackdaws and the scent of melting earth.<\/p>\n
I sit in a wicker chair on the terrace of our new home. Spacious, bright, with wide corridors and no thresholds. A home that Ilya built for us with the royalties from his works.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mom, the tea is getting cold, \u2014 Ilya sets a new cup before me. Forty-seven years old, yet his movements remain as careful and deliberate as ever.<\/p>\n
Now he navigates not only our home \u2014 but the entire world.<\/p>\n
\u2014 I was thinking, \u2014 I smile as I take the cup. \u2014 I remembered how we started.<\/p>\n
Stepan comes out of the garden, leaning on his cane. The years have not been kind to his sturdy back \u2014 he had hauled too much lumber, too many boards he had hewed.
\n\u2014 What are you two talking about? \u2014 he asks, sitting down beside me.<\/p>\n
\u2014 About the past, \u2014 Ilya answers and laughs. \u2014 Mom, you\u2019re lost in your memories again.<\/p>\n
\u2014 She\u2019s our dreamer, \u2014 Stepan takes my hand. His palm still rough, though now marked by age spots.<\/p>\n
I look at them \u2014 the two most important men in my life \u2014 and I cannot believe how much has happened over the years.<\/p>\n
After that conversation on the porch, Ilya began dictating stories to me. At first hesitantly, then ever more boldly.<\/p>\n
I recorded every word in a thick notebook. When personal computers appeared, we mastered the technology together.<\/p>\n
Anna Pavlovna from the library helped us establish contact with the editorial board of a literary publication.<\/p>\n
Ilya\u2019s first story was published in 2000. \u201cListening to the World\u201d \u2014 a narrative about a boy who distinguished people by the sound of their steps. Then came a novella, a novel, a collection.<\/p>\n
Ilya\u2019s creativity is unique. It tells of people who perceive reality in another way. Of voices, sounds, touches.<\/p>\n
Of a light that one can feel on the skin. Of a memory that is more powerful than sight.<\/p>\n
Now he has his own studio in a large house \u2014 with a computer that voices everything that appears on the screen. With speech recognition programs that capture his words.<\/p>\n
Technological innovations have transformed the lives of people like him. But Ilya asserts that the main transformation did not come from the equipment.<\/p>\n
\u2014 People have started to listen, \u2014 he explains to journalists who come for interviews. \u2014 They have learned to heed those who are different.<\/p>\n
Stepan activates a radio \u2014 an old device that we keep like a relic.<\/p>\n
\u2014 They\u2019ll be talking about our boy again, \u2014 he says proudly.<\/p>\n
Ilya grimaces:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dad, turn it off. It\u2019s awkward to listen to things about yourself.<\/p>\n
\u2014 But I love it, \u2014 Stepan insists stubbornly. \u2014 Do you remember, Ekaterina, the first time he said \u201cmom\u201d?<\/p>\n
I smile.<\/p>\n
\u2014 How could I forget\u2026 I cried like the last fool back then.<\/p>\n
The radio broadcasts news about Ilya Vorontsov\u2019s new novel, which has become a significant event in literature. About his small charitable foundation for blind children.<\/p>\n
About how society\u2019s attitude toward people with visual impairments has transformed.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a knock at the door \u2014 a new device has been delivered for Ilyusha\u2019s studio. My son goes to answer \u2014 confidently, without brushing against the walls. In a house built for him, he needs no guides.
\n\u2014 Imagine, \u2014 he returns beaming, \u2014 they\u2019ve invited me to join the \u201cPeople of Light\u201d foundation! They want me to be their representative.<\/p>\n
\u2014 You\u2019ll go? \u2014 Stepan asks.<\/p>\n
\u2014 I don\u2019t know, \u2014 Ilya sits between us. \u2014 Only if you come with me. I\u2019m nowhere without you.<\/p>\n
The three of us sit on the terrace, listening to spring. I watch my son \u2014 tall, a stately man with noble streaks of gray at his temples.<\/p>\n
Behind him, my husband \u2014 aged, yet as reliable as ever. And I reflect on that rain, on that cry in the night.<\/p>\n
I always believed that we gave Ilya life. But with time, I realized \u2014 he gave life to us. Filled it with meaning, with a light that cannot be seen but is felt every day. He taught us to notice what others miss. To listen with the heart.<\/p>\n
If that October night were to happen again \u2014 I would run out onto the porch once more. Barefoot, into the rain. And I would again say: yes. Yes to this fate. Yes to this son. Yes to this life, which turned out to be far richer than I could have dreamed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mom, what are you thinking about? \u2014 Ilya touches my hand.<\/p>\n
\u2014 That you are the best thing that ever happened to us, \u2014 I say simply.<\/p>\n
\u2014 No, \u2014 he shakes his head and smiles that special smile I\u2019ve known for many years. \u2014 The best thing that happened is us. All of us together.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Oh, son, there go your wife and daughter! Let\u2019s go meet them.<\/p>\n
And now, would you like to know how Ilya perceived everything that was happening? Let\u2019s take a look at the story from his point of view.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
My world was always peculiar. Not \u201cdark\u201d \u2014 as many believe. Just different, filled with sounds, scents, touches.<\/p>\n
My earliest memories are of the warmth of my mother\u2019s hands. Her voice, ringing like a spring brook. My father\u2019s rough fingers, exuding the smell of resin and wood.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know when I realized I couldn\u2019t see \u2014 because I had never seen otherwise. I was five when I first became curious about it.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mom, why can\u2019t I see like everyone else?<\/p>\n
She froze. I heard her breath catch. Then she took my hands and placed them on her face. \u2014 You see in a different way, Ilyusha. With your hands, with your ears, with your heart. Eyes are only one method. You have others.<\/p>\n
That day she took me into the garden and let me touch every tree, every bush. \u201cRemember their voices,\u201d she said. \u2014 \u201cThe birch rustles differently than the aspen. The apple tree smells unlike the cherry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world for me was a symphony of sounds. The creak of the floorboards in the house, which told me exactly where I was. The clatter of dishes in the kitchen. The rustle of pages when mom read to me in the evenings.<\/p>\n
When I was six, a neighbor boy named Vovka asked: \u201cAnd how do you see dreams?\u201d I thought for a long time about how to explain. \u2014 In my dreams, I soar. I touch the treetops. I hear the sound of every leaf.<\/p>\n
\u2014 But what color are they? \u2014 he pressed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Colors\u2026 they have sounds, \u2014 I said then. \u2014 Yellow rings like a little bell. Red rumbles like a trumpet.<\/p>\n
Vovka fell silent. Then he grabbed my hand:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Come on! I\u2019ll show you something!<\/p>\n
He led me to the river. He scooped up water with his hands and let me feel it.<\/p>\n
\u2014 See how blue it is, \u2014 he said. \u2014 Like cold water.<\/p>\n
Thus began our friendship. And my understanding of colors through touch, sounds, temperature. When it came time to learn, mom created a whole world of embossed letters for me. I would run my fingers over the rough boards for hours, memorizing the shapes. I mastered the alphabet in a week. Reading opened up a whole new universe for me.<\/p>\n
\u2014 How do you remember so quickly? \u2014 mom marveled.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know how to explain. To me, each letter had its own character, its own voice. And words came together in melodies I could not forget. At eight, people came who wanted to take me away. I stood by the door, listening as mom argued with them. \u201cHe\u2019s ours,\u201d \u2014 she said in a way that sent shivers down my spine. \u2014 \u201cAnd he will live only with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I realized for the first time \u2014 not being able to see in this world means being in danger. They could take you away, separate you, hide you from everyone else. And I also understood that I had protectors. Dad built me a room. I helped him, handing him nails, holding the boards. He never said \u201cbe careful\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t touch\u201d \u2014 he simply explained:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Hold the hammer firmly. Strike accurately, without fear.<\/p>\n
At twelve, I began to tell stories. First, I retold the ones mom read to me. Then I started inventing my own. \u2014 Where do you get these stories from? \u2014 the village kids asked, gathering around me.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Out of thin air, \u2014 I laughed. \u2014 I hear them whisper.<\/p>\n
In truth, the stories were born out of sounds. The creak of a door became the beginning of an adventure.<\/p>\n
The sound of rain transformed into a march. The whir of mom\u2019s sewing machine turned in my imagination into the measured clatter of train wheels.<\/p>\n
I could almost physically feel how the train carried its characters further and further from familiar places \u2014 to where new territories and unknown challenges awaited.<\/p>\n
At seventeen, I was struck with the realization \u2014 my stories should not vanish into thin air.<\/p>\n
They yearned to be set on paper, demanded to exist beyond my voice. I wanted to reveal to people how the world is experienced by one who has never seen it. \u2014 You dictate, and I\u2019ll write, \u2014 mom simply said when, overcome with emotion, I shared my dream with her. There was not a trace of doubt in her tone, as if she had been waiting for that moment for a long time.<\/p>\n
She recorded every word I dictated. Every day after her school classes, she would sit beside her notebook. I heard the scratch of her pen, the rustle of the pages. It was our secret, our ritual. The first story was printed when I was twenty-two. I remember dad reading it aloud \u2014 published in a magazine, a real one. His voice trembled with pride.<\/p>\n
The surrounding reality transformed around me. Computers appeared, talking programs, e-books. I embraced new technologies, discovered opportunities I never could have dreamed of in my childhood. At thirty, I met Marina \u2014 an editor at a publishing house who came to negotiate a new book.<\/p>\n
She walked across our yard, and I immediately recognized her footsteps among all the other sounds \u2014 light, yet confident, with a distinctive rhythm, as if she were not walking but dancing along the edge of the earth.<\/p>\n
And her voice\u2026 It interwove notes that touched something deep within me \u2014 like a string resonating in unison with my heartbeat.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Confess, \u2014 she said, leafing through the manuscript of my new book, \u2014 what\u2019s your secret? Your descriptions are so\u2026 tangible. I literally feel everything you write about.<\/p>\n
\u2014 I perceive the world through other senses, \u2014 I answered. \u2014 And I translate them into a universal language.<\/p>\n
A year later, we married. Two years after that, our daughter Anya was born \u2014 with eyes like Marina\u2019s (as mom says), and long fingers like mine (I already know that by touch).<\/p>\n
With each new book, the accolades kept coming.<\/p>\n
Interviews, travels, meetings with readers. I founded a foundation to support blind children. Together with Marina, we created a small studio \u2014 our own little island where books come to life.<\/p>\n
We built a home \u2014 not just walls and a roof, but an extension of ourselves, with rooms that seem to breathe in rhythm with its inhabitants. In the garden, where I know every bush by its scent, now rest parents whose hands have earned that peace.<\/p>\n
On the threshold of forty-seven, I look back and feel like a collector of treasures that money cannot buy \u2014 they come only through fate, through encounters, through overcoming challenges.<\/p>\n
Not sight \u2014 but the ability to perceive the world in layers, in depth. Not an ordinary childhood \u2014 but one filled with the love of two people who never let me feel \u201cdifferent.\u201d People often pity the blind. They ask, \u201cHow do you cope?\u201d I always answer, \u201cAnd why should I not cope?\u201d<\/p>\n
My world is full of colors \u2014 they just have sounds, scents, textures. My world is full of faces \u2014 I just feel them with my fingertips.<\/p>\n
I did not lose my sight \u2014 I found other ways to perceive reality.<\/p>\n
And I also found parents who taught me the most important thing: blindness is not an obstacle. The obstacle is fear. And love is stronger than any barrier. Here, on the terrace, between the two dearest breaths, amid the mingling voices of the spring garden, I sometimes feel a strange sensation \u2014 as if I see the world more clearly than many who can see, because I have learned to distinguish the essence of things, sifting the chaff of the trivial from the grains of the genuine.<\/p>\n
And if you ask me: \u201cWould you like to see as everyone else?\u201d I would answer: \u201cWho said that I see any less?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who\u2019s crying out there? Stepan, can you hear? In such dismal weather, someone is crying! \u2014 Probably it\u2019s just the wind howling, Katyusha. What tears could there… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n