My grandmother gave me a small icon of the Most Holy Theotokos for graduation. She said that this old icon had saved her loved ones many times: For example, my mother, when she was very sick with the measles in childhood; or my grandfather, when they tried to put him in jail on false charges of grand larceny (he was the director of a restaurant).
I loved my grandmother and I didn’t want to offend her
with my disbelief or doubts about the faith, but I couldn’t help it:
“Grandma, what do I need an icon for? I was class
representative in school, a Komsomol member; I’ve been published in newspapers
since I was thirteen, interviewing leaders of production and party secretaries
from district and regional committees. Thanks to one of my articles, three high
school girls were paid for their work in a factory over the summer, though they
had been refused before that. They should count it as a school internship, they
said. And you want me to have an icon, so my classmates and friends can laugh
at me?”
I took the icon and put it in my jewelry box.
When I was still in high school, I was preparing to go
to Moscow State University to study journalism. However, I didn’t manage to get
in on my first try, but the second try was successful. Getting in turned out to
be difficult that year. To be a full-time student, you had to get a 14 out of
15 on the exam, and there were eight people tying for each spot. I got one less
point than necessary. But the admissions office told me not to be in any hurry
to gather my documents or fill out an application for the evening or
correspondence courses. It turns out that 13 points was declared semi-passable.
One member of the committee looked at my applications, my work record (I worked
as a courier in an editorial office and as a freelance correspondent), my
publications, and decided that I had a chance to become a first-year full-time
student. Of course, what she shared with me was a secret, but she violated this
secrecy because we had the same name.
There were only a few, nervous and difficult, days
left until enrollment. I remember how I completely randomly reached for the
jewelry box and took the icon out of it. I began to pray in my own words and to
ask the Mother of God to help me become a student, thereby making my parents
happy. I can bear it myself if I have to. I’ll prepare and start in a year or
two. But I asked for a miracle because I was worried about my elderly parents,
and they were afraid that I would be stuck forever as an applicant. My mother
was crying and saying that my friends were already in their second year and I
was still taking the entrance exams, and that I would never get married. My
parents could take my next failure with the school to heart and get sick.
The Mother of God heard my naïve prayers. I laughed
and cried and hugged my mama and papa and my younger brother at the
congratulatory ceremony. I went up to the list of accepted students that was
hanging there several times to check again and again that my last name was
still there, that it hadn’t gone anywhere.
Unfortunately, good things and God’s help are often
quickly forgotten. Instead of reexamining my life, I stuck my grandmother’s
icon in the box again. When my friends and classmates would ask how I managed
to get into such a prestigious university, I would say: “I studied a lot, I was
published in newspapers and journals, I was on the radio, and I was even
involved in a youth program on Central TV. You see, work is never wasted.” I
didn’t say a single word about the help of the Most Holy Theotokos! Not out of
modesty, not because my friends weren’t believers yet and could have laughed at
the help of the Lord, His Most Pure Mother, and His saints, but because at some
point I believed that I myself was strong and that everything was in my hands.
The icon lay in my box again for a long time.
I turned to her three years after my miraculous
admission. By that time, I was married and had a daughter. She was born healthy
and peaceful, she slept at night, and bothered no one. Even my neighbors joked:
“Does she ever even cry? Does she ever wake up? It’s so quiet in your
apartment, it’s atypical for families with babies.”
When the baby was two months old, she had convulsions,
and she stopped breathing. It’s a good thing my mother was there and she called
the ambulance. I tried CPR, but nothing helped. I pressed my baby to myself and
suddenly remembered grandma’s icon. Tears fell onto the icon. Stammering and
shaking, I asked the Theotokos to save and take pity upon my daughter. My
mangled words were suddenly cut short by my daughter’s shrill cry. She was
alive and breathing!
The ambulance arrived just then. They advised us to go
to the hospital, as the doctor feared more seizures, and they also needed to
check her eyegrounds. The child had stopped breathing for a time, and this
could have a bad effect on the brain.
I stood there distraught: An icon in one hand, a
weeping child in the other.
The doctors were very understanding:
“We’ll help you pack your things for the hospital,
otherwise you won’t come out of this shock. You don’t look well, you’re so
scared.”
In the ambulance, I asked how they managed to arrive
so quickly. No more than two or three minutes had passed from the time of the
seizures to the medics’ arrival. (This incident happened in the 1990s, when you
could wait hours for an ambulance, if it came at all). It turns out they had
received a fake call near our building, so when the dispatcher’s signal came in
about the seizures, the ambulance only had to go a few yards. I realized
immediately that this was no coincidence, not just technical details, but that
the Lord and His Mother had not abandoned my child in danger.
Glory to God, we had cause to rejoice at the hospital.
All the tests and analyses were in order, and we were quickly discharged.
When we were leaving, I asked the doctor what happened
to my daughter and how to avoid it happening again. The woman doctor answered
without hesitation:
“Anything can happen with young children. Do you know
why they brought you to the hospital right away? Because several babies wound
up in the hospital with the same symptoms in one day. I won’t go into detail—I
don’t want to scare a young mother—but I’ll just say: You’re lucky. Everything
is fine here. But so that it doesn’t happen again—have her baptized. Our life
and health are in the hands of God.
We wasted no time, and baptized our daughter in the
Elokhov Cathedral in Moscow. The Kazan Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos no
longer lies in the jewelry box, but stands on a shelf. But unfortunately, I
wasn’t able to ask my grandmother more about the story of the icon. I wish I
had managed to thank her and tell her that she was right.
Alexandra Gripas
7/28/2020
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