There are certain professions, which include people ruling others’ destinies – politicians, military officers, teachers and even journalists. You may be surprised, dear readers, but it’s what I imagined myself recently, until my good friend phoned me and said directly: “Kosnyak, you are my savior, you saved my life, saved my family and even my business!”
Of course, I was pleased to hear it, but still I couldn’t understand how I did all those heroic things. With my journalist curiosity, remaining calm and waiting for the details of my good deeds, I asked: “Remind me when I started working on your life and problems so closely. What losses are you talking about? As far as I know, you have a successful business, a loving wife and a beautiful child. We celebrated his birthday with all your friends, it was so cool, it was…”“Two and a half years ago, - my friend Vadim interrupted me. – Wait and listen what happened to me after that!
After our child was born, my wife and I almost haven’t seen each other. I hired a woman to help her around the house. I was managing my business from early in the morning to late at night, saved a large sum to buy a good house and made the down payment. Then we were busy with the moving, buying new furniture, renewing the houseware. A huge, fully equipped kitchen, a light kid’s room. The house looked perfect for us. But as soon as we entered the house with the child, he started crying and stopped only when fell asleep. We calmed down, but his temperature went up at night and we couldn’t normalize it. We had to call an ambulance and drive to a hospital. We got help there, they did some analysis and everything seemed fine. When we came back home, my wife left the kid on a nanny and went downstairs. Right at that moment, the child shouted and the wife, turning her head back to the kid, twisted her leg and fell down the stairs. Broken arms and legs, constant baby crying – I was desperate. However, the temperature hasn’t bothered us again.
My wife couldn’t feed the kid with her own milk as it was absent because of the stress. One day, I was so nervous that I shouted at the nanny, I don’t know why. So she packed her things and left. I decided to call my mom…She agreed to help us and move here. It seemed that everything was finally well, although the child wouldn’t stop crying. I came back to work, the business, of course was hit by my absence for a few weeks. I still worked for 16 hours a day, I got a new contract and started working on it. Some time later, my wife said she wanted to talk to me privately. She said my mother was too nervous and that she blamed her for breaking the limbs and being unable to feed the child. That she, a mother-in-law, was not a slave, so we needed to hire a nanny. I promised to find one. When my mom found out about the searches, she made a huge scandal saying that my wife just wanted to put us against each other, that we were ungrateful and that she’d rather die than see my wife turning me into a weakling… Then she packed her things and left.
It turned to be quite difficult to find a nanny. I spent a weak searching and helping my wife as I could. During my absence at work, my partner hired a person who didn’t have insurance or even Canadian documents. Working on high objects, he fell from the construction platform and died. And then the real problems started. I spent most of my time in court, my property and all accounts were arrested. I felt like an animal at bay. We were fighting with my wife everyday, until once I woke up in an empty house – the wife took our kid and came back to her parents in Russia. After that, I surrendered and started drinking.
I lived this way for a year. One day I barely moved myself into the bathroom to get a shower. Water gave me strength to reach the liquor store. I came home, pushed away empty bottles and cans from the dirty table and saw a newspaper, which I put on the crumbs and under the wine bottle. I poured a glass and suddenly saw blurry letters under its bottom. The article’s author was L. Kosnyak. With certain feeling of irony, I started reading the interview, which ended with the words: “There are no dead-end situations, there are always at least two moves”. The respondent was Medium Leila.
I don’t believe in coincidences, so I thought it was a sign and phoned her…
I stopped drinking very soon, got myself back together and felt alive again. There were trial sessions for three more months. I was found not guilty. Of course, I lost money, but it was nothing compared to what was waiting for me. Leila helped me clean and sell the house, which turned out to be the main reason for all my troubles. Recently, after a long period of communication with my wife via Skype, we finally made up. She’s coming here next week with our kid. With God’s help, I hope the business will also get back to normal. So I’m calling you, my friend, to say that not only Leila, but you as well are a big “witch”, and THANK YOU both for that”.
…That’s the end of my conversation with an old friend, whose name, despite all the journalist rules, I mentioned earlier. As many readers know this story, especially those who work in a construction business, I was very glad to hear Vadim’s gratitude, although I still couldn’t understand what my part in this story was. Anyway, thank you, Leila, for my friend and for myself as well. If I ever decide to leave journalism, I’ll definitely attend your courses. Maybe, I do have something secret in me…
Reporter L. Kosnyak.
With smile and sympathy.
