Close to Dobursko - a village of around 600 people - ethnically pure community in the Pirin mountains. We went to continue the work we started last summer - interviewing women in the village. As usual they were sitting outside on the benches chatting - same croud of last year with two missing. My friend Alex went to investigate. Grandma Sofia had died in November and grandma Katya was now blind and sitting in front of her house. My heart sank - this one woman Sofia had pored out her soul and given us her precious story last year, I needed to see her. It was more than conducting an interview, I had made a connection of trust. Now all we had left of her was the short recording of a conversation and a few pictures. Grandma Katya could not remember who we were, repeated the same songs she sang last year and looked much aged in the little time we had not seen her.
I talked to the women and made some important conclusions regarding the interviewing process, but of that later. Here I want to share the story I recorded and translated last year.
Righteousness keeps me
Grandma Sofia – 1922-2010
photo:Alexander Bagdatov
I am 88 years old. I had a grandson. He was such a nice child – 23 years old. Was an example to all. He would go somewhere with friends, someone would start quarreling – he would try to settle them down and make peace. He did not drink or smoke. Car accident – he died. His mother had prepared clothes for him and the bride – he was getting married….
His mother lived 17 years after him and then she died too, it has been three years now. Everyone thinks their child is the best, but she was a very nice child. Was married in Eleshnitsa. And I am alive and they are dead. First the grandson, then the daughter. I keep having dreams, I dream of them. Wake up at night and cannot sleep. And since she was lost the son-in-low gave me her clothes and would say, “Here, wear this”. I know how I wear them. I am not the person to have tears, but my heart cries always.
What keeps you?
Righteousness keeps me. I don’t want anyone to fight, to be in bad relationships, I try to make better. Now we are here with my son. When they gave the land back he got here a house. He used to be a teacher in Sofia, now he lives with me so I am not alone. He works a lot, very hardworking person he is. This is what holds me together. I can’t do much, but make him food daily. My daughter-in-law is in Kostin Brod, has a mother bedridden now for 15 years. We talk every night with her. We love each other. She always asks my son: “How is your mother?” He goes to see her there once in a long while. We have a horse and a stable far from the home and someone needs to tend it, so he cannot go for long. I help with nothing anymore. Life is so hard. Barely, barely, barely I try and suffer. I come slowly and sit outside. Watch the women go by. I have not seen much good, but life has been given to me and why.
“Alive they held hands, dead they let go” – a song
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