My Life

I always think that it’s going to be a problem. Why would I recount my history when it always ends up in the same way. There is a need there I realize, some essential inner drive that makes me share my story with others.

When my husband died in an work accident in a Coal mine 10 years ago I was 29 years old left with 3 young children to raise on my own. Lukac my eldest was 9 and the twins Nathalia and Igor were 6.
How would I deal with the pain of losing my husband?


I learned over time to cope with the grief in a way that may seem strange. I would tell myself he is still alive and he has left me, is in fact living elsewhere. I believed this on some level so much that I was even able to think of him as a pig for abandoning his family.. It allowed me to express along with the grief, anger that I felt at his departure. This may seem bizarre, a narrative of denial but it helped when everything else did not. I was able to continue. I knew he was dead but I needed to believe he was still there. I felt the loss most intensely when I would visit a beautiful place, and would find myself sad to consider that he could not be there with me. The feeling would pass quickly when I felt that he was there. There was another side to the way I felt about him being far away at odds with what I believed but a paradox that I was able to sustain.. I felt that he was also there always,watching over me and our children in times of trouble, our own guardian angel.

Two years after his death in December of 2001 my daughter began to complain of pain in her hip. She was eight and had recently experienced a growth spurt so we thought that it was growing pains. She had a accompanying mild fever that could not be so easily explained; however, it was mild so at first it did not merit too much attention, Then the symptoms of pain and fever gradually became worse and we could not dismiss it as nothing, Though I was afraid I felt that my husband was there and he would watch over her.

I was in an examination room, the chief medical officer was standing in front of my daughter’s bed discussing her case to group of student interns. Sitting behind them was an older attending doctor listening to her along with the others. I was there watching and listening eagerly with the hope of finding out what was wrong with Nathalia. The chief doctor was distant . She did not address us personally and she left me with the impression that Nathalia and I were extraneous to the lesson she was giving to her students. She spoke at length of the possible differential diagnoses while she examined an x-ray of Nathalia’s leg and hip. The older doctor came forward and started to examine the x-ray himself, He was lost in thought while the chief continued to explain the case to her interns. The older doctor spoke up and suggested that there seemed to be an unusual finding which was not entirely clear on the x-ray. He wanted to do another x-ray closer to the source of the pain to remove any doubts. The chief doctor disagreed and told him it was not necessary. Fortunately for us the attending doctor was on call that night at the hospital. He went against the chief’s instructions and ordered another x-ray.

He called me for an appointment to discuss the case the following day. In his office I could tell immediately that something was wrong. His expression was serious like there was something he was building himself up to say. He told me he believed it was cancer and that he needed to take a biopsy and conduct other tests to confirm the diagnosis. I could not accept it. it almost did not seem real to me. I thought where is my husband He was supposing to be watching over me. Had he taken a vacation?