heavy

tamelyn feinstein

I first met my friend Zhanna when she and her family came here from Ukraine in 1995. Working together at the JCC, we hit it off instantly; her intelligence, humor, and joie de vivre were such a delight, and I admired her ability to adapt and thrive in the strange new environment she found herself suddenly thrust into as a refugee.

Although English was not her first language (it was her third), she learned it quickly and had an elegant and almost poetic way of expressing herself in her new tongue. When changing a baby's diaper, she would laugh and say, "Oh, it smells like someone has brought me roses!" She described herself as "someone who has to jump headfirst into every puddle that other people know to walk around." And when she looked into my eyes and knew that something was troubling me (and she always knew, no matter how I tried to hide it), she would just nod and say, "Yes, I know. It's heavy."

She was my son's first teacher. She loved to listen to Tchaikovsky. She taught me how to read Russian. She giggled like a schoolgirl when I taught her naughty words in English. She was my friend.

I just got word that my friend Zhanna died early this morning.

And it's heavy.

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