The little Polish waitress appeared at their table and asked if there was anything else that she could get them. "Would you like tea Uncle Dimitri?" "Yes...something warm...yes tea sounds wonderful...thank you"...Dimitri said softly. The waitress smiled, took their empty glasses, and went off to get their tea. "I spent the rest of that day Boris, just thinking about the events that I had just experienced. Those thoughts and feelings just kept racing through my mind. Your aunt Larisa and I spoke at great length about what had happened that morning. She was so saddened to hear this terrible story. I think that she too understood just the complete senselessness of how it all came to happen. Over the next few days we were able to help your mother with the many arrangements that required attention. Your father's funeral was held in a small chapel in the village where you grew up. Lines of people filed past his coffin Boris. The small chapel could not contain them all. They filled the yards outside...they stood there silently in the green grass on that beautiful spring day. Bouquets of flowers like you couldn't imagine. I could not believe my eyes. It was only over time, as I discovered more about Ivan's life, that I came to understand how he had affected so many people's lives. I remembered how my great grandmother had told me a similar story when I was a child. She loved to read and loved poetry. She related to me a story about a writer whose words had touched so many people and how they had paid their respects to him at his passing. I'm convinced that she must have told your father the same story. It was an uncanny feeling for me when I thought about the similarities. I had given up so much Boris...so much time that I would never be able to get back with this remarkable man, and in my heart, I knew what had motivated me to do so. In the months that followed, your aunt and I visited your mother often. We did everything that we could do to help her. Her words that she spoke to me that awful morning kept coming into my mind.... "We are family." When I think about it now, I feel that the lengths that we went to in our willingness to help were somehow motivated by the crushing guilt that we both felt. But we were happy to help in any way that we could. It was actually Katiya that during that time, wanted to know more about our beliefs. By that time our devotion to the council had...how should I say...well...our level of devotion had somewhat diminished. But she was persistent, so Larisa agreed to help her become familiar with the instructions of the "Council." It was just shortly before you were born Boris, that your mother emblematized her devotion and became a "Comrade." Looking back on it now it seems to me that it may have been a reaction to the trauma that she had experienced...Ivan's sudden death...moving relatively recently to a new village...the birth of her first child. But all these years she has "stuck to the path" so they say. And that, my dear nephew, is how you came to be and what has shaped your life."...Dimiti smiled. Boris sat silently, ruminating all that his uncle had just related to him. They both sipped their tea which surprisingly was still warm. After some moments of silence, Boris questioned in a muted voice..."And what of my father's death uncle Dimitri...you said that the constable would inform you...what did he say to you?" .........to be continued...

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