We often repeat that material well-being is not the main thing. It seems that the time has come to remember, but a person is an inquiring creature: he will never believe until he is convinced himself. Having money is good, of course, but so many other factors must be added to it that money always fades into the background. How many times have we been convinced of this, but the dream of owning a large house and a fleet of vehicles still haunts many people. And this, by the way, is not bad. A person will still not understand the idea of \u200b\u200bthe universe as a whole, but he must live his life well, well-fed and, most importantly, joyfully. I have a story. About Aunt Masha.
Aunt Masha was our neighbor. I loved this hospitable but sad woman. She wore old-fashioned dresses, rarely left the house, she was alone despite the presence of a husband and children. He had no one to tell his problems to. She often said that God cursed her for something. At the same time, in addition to the apartment, they had a house in the city, a car. Despite the “hungry nineties” there is always plenty of food on the table. “Damned?” I thought. It didn’t fit in my head that you could be rich and miserable.
She herself grew up in a remote village, in her extended family they ended her as an ugly girl, but by some miracle she still managed to leave the old maid for a rich man of 15 years, twice divorced. She became a faceless maid for him. She treated her husband with servitude and fear of animals. He did not put his “short wife” for anything – he called her that, openly associated with other women, raised his hand, insulted, believed that he was doing her a favor by marrying her. She knew she had nowhere to go, no education, no job, and that no one was waiting for her at her parents’ house: her stepmother was in charge there after her mother’s death. Aunt Masha told me all this while drinking a cup of tea and ordering me some cabbage or cranberry pies she baked wonderfully. Externally, “suede jackets – three!” with nerdy amazement. We looked like Shpak with a police dog from “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession”, which he told about.
A nine-year-old boy chewing a cake and a woman fed up with everything – she had no one to pour out her grief. Even then I was a walking ear – I loved to listen and asked a million questions.
Her husband earned well, but there were rumors that he was a greedy, cruel, dishonest entrepreneur who deceived hundreds of people for his own benefit. Many cursed him – it was neighbor gossip, but I think it was true. He kept his children and wife in awe, reminding him that they owed him everything and that if something went wrong they could calmly pack up a few things and head in the four directions. I felt sorry for these zatyukannyh children, whom the father often whipped for the slightest offense. It was wild for me. All three grew up embittered while one suffered from depression. “You worthless children of your worthless mother,” their father used to say. “Just look at that boy!” pointed to me. “He works, eats hungrily and is cheerful and has more than enough energy, not like you cows,” he said angrily. I was frankly frightened by these accolades, starting to feel guilty for eating hungrily, and their children not being successful.
Despite rumors that it all started after he was hit on the head, he suddenly fell ill. He stopped recognizing anyone. Dementia progressed rapidly and soon put him in a wheelchair, depriving him of facial expressions, speech and the ability to be self-serving. But at first, at least in the moments when she came to her senses, then, from old memory, she again beat Aunt Masha with anything, kicked, threw objects, shit on the carpets, crushed everything around. A few years later, he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered. Aunt Masha was paralyzed for two years.
But then something changed.
Under the supervision of a nurse, we watched as he came to his wife in a wheelchair from another wing of the house and held her hand, staring at her silently, as tears rolled down her unshaven and incomprehensible face, her glassy eyes. Did he want to say something to her?
He died six months later. Aunt Masha survived him for a year and three months. He was never told that he died. Sometimes he would ask about his health and ask why he didn’t come. He was sure it had come while he was sleeping.
Aunt Masha, forgetting herself, continued to look for her daughters, thinking that they were in the next room. The girls came only for the funeral and, as Mayakovsky wrote, “without words and touches” they left in all directions. They didn’t even seem to be communicating with each other. Aunt Masha did not even fight for her life. Once I arrived and decided to visit him – he asked me: “Do you have a little pill to stop torturing everyone and make myself suffer?”
I often think about Aunt Masha and her life. I ask myself these meaningless questions: what did Aunt Masha have and why did she suffer? Would her life have been different if she had married someone else? I can’t get the image of Aunt Masha out of my mind. And how many such people – restless, lonely and unhappy, wandering in the darkness of this world and entering someone else’s darkness, never having received their share of love, care and affection. And after all, many are not deprived of material wealth.
I had a client recently. He literally said: “I need twice as much money, all lyrical questions aside – relationships, self-love, health, etc. My focus is money: when they are, I’ll organize everything else.
Unfortunately this is not possible. “What is happiness?” among my acquaintances who consider themselves completely happy people. There is no one answering my question. – I would say that it is in the least connected with money or material goods in general. Elements of comfort, pleasure, freedom – yes, but no one associates happiness and love with money. There is something to think about.
I will definitely tell my client the life story of Aunt Masha – this hospitable woman from childhood, who had everything in abundance, but lacked the main thing – love and happiness.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Source: Gazeta
