As I was walking out of Odessa's St. Sofia's church, a small woman in her sixties accosted me, wanting to talk. She struggled with English and I struggled to make myself understood, to ask simple questions. I conveyed that my maternal grandparents had come from Kiev, and I learned that her name was Valenkina and she had lost two children. She was plainly dressed, un-cosmeticized, far from beautiful, yet beautiful. She gave me a little icon from the church--a two-inch oval frame with a picture of the Virgin Mary and her son--both ornamented in the manner of Eastern Orthodox iconography. It was a wonderful gift because a stranger gave it to me with no thought but to give.
And I thought: had the karmic wheel turned a little differently, we might have grown up friends in Kiev. And somehow this woman reminded me of my mother. And I felt like, through this good stranger, my mother was blessing me on my journey.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gary Corseri has published novels and poetry collections,
and has worked as a gas-pumper, a busboy, a pizza delivery man, a grape-picker
in Australia, and an editor. His dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and
elsewhere, and he has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Center,
etc. He has taught in US prisons and public schools, and at US and Japanese
universities, and his work has appeared at Opednews, The New York Times, Redbook's
Famous Fiction Anthology, Village Voice, and hundreds of periodicals and
websites worldwide.
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