First night together watching TV. Bus ride home. Sash’s classmates. Kiss from teacher Olya (note Pretko in doorway).
The Blog.
It’s over! We have out kids. Both of them. After the uncertainty and heartbreak of Tuesday, finality. Resolution defeats anticlimax at last.
(As we haven’t blogged in 3 days, we are typing this day first. If you want to know about yesterday, you may have to wait a day and scroll down from here.)
We got Nastia up at 5:30 again today. She’s had no more than 4 ½ hours sleep each of the past two nights. What a trooper. A quick breakfast and off through the chilly streets to the Metro. Nine stops later, we met Svieta and Luda at Ivan’s car by Zhitomerskya bus station and whizzed out to Radomischle to meet the Iron Maiden at 8:00 AM sharp, her instructions from yesterday. Nastia slept the whole way.
Of course, the madam did not show till 8:30, meaning we could have taken the bus and saved our dwindling cash resources. Luda, our savior, a senior translator with years of experience, took over. Svieta didn’t say a word. Luda stood toe to toe with Mrs. Pretko and handed back very smartly every drop of manure slung at her.
First there was an argument about the medical documents. Then a lecture about how yesterday was our fault for showing up after 5 PM (normal working hours). Of course, Pretko herself hadn’t gotten back from Zhitomer till 7. Then the lawyer showed up and the documents appeared and lo, they were being completed.
Luda took the medical documents to the hospital to have a doctor do a summary (required). Photos were affixed to various documents. Stamps were stamped. Papers were signed. More papers. More stamps. Sasha appeared in the doorway with his teacher Olya (who we love)! He played with Nastia for half an hour while the work was done. We signed an itemized receipt for his clothing (1 pair of socks, 1 pair of underwear, a shirt, a sweater, his jacket, his hat, etc.)
Interestingly, Pretko gave us a bank book showing that Sash has a balance of 1,000 grivne ($200) from a pension he gets because of his deceased father. We don’t know if he will continue to receive funds, but they will be his at 18.
Pretko tried her best to be sweet, but raised a number of useless arguments nevertheless. Then it was done. He was ours!!!
We piled into the car with the bookkeeper from the school and went to the bank to make a donation of $200 to the school. This will be used to by feed for the cattle to keep them alive through the winter. They’ve already had to butcher a few of them because they couldn’t afford their upkeep. The kids apparently learn animal husbandry here and care for the animals. The school sells the milk to a dairy.
On the way out, Pretko gave Sash a very cool toy keyboard synthesizer that he and Nastia both love. Luda advised us not to take it but I told her there was no way we were going to take it away from them. (Mrs. Pretko did insist we take it in the end.)
Then we dropped Luda and Svieta at the court where they were picking up a document from the judge resolving the issue at the passport office by explicitly stating the date that the 10 day waiting period expired. (That was a tough one to figure I guess.) We went back to the school with the kids to distribute some candy to Sasha’s class and say goodbye to his friends.
We kissed and hugged all the kids one last time. Over 5 weeks we’ve gotten attached to them ourselves. We wish we could do something for all of them as they are all worthy of so much more than they have received in life. Great kids, full of love and laughter and caring for each other. I (Mike) will especially miss Sasha’s two best friends Ina and Timur. It’s funny that they were my favorite kids as well as his.
We got a lecture from Luda when we picked her up that we were wasting time and that they had to get to Zhitomer to try to meet the passport guy before he left for lunch. Ivan dropped us off at our friends Isaac and Nina Press’ house. We really wanted to say goodbye to them and more than that, as they were among the last Jews in this once mostly Jewish city. It was symbolically important to me to send this latest generation of Ukrainian Golds to the United States with a blessing.
Nina made them a lunch that will probably be the last authentic homemade Ukrainian food they get in a long time. They really enjoyed it. We talked with them and their grandchildren Vova and Artur for a couple of hours. Vova goes to a Jewish school in Kiev (3 hours driving each day) where he studies Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew and English. He filled in the gaps of Lauren’s translations. (Lauren: Also very impressive, this 10 year old Ukrainian conversed with me in Hebrew.)
Then Nina walked us to the bus station where we caught a minibus to Kiev. Bye bye Radomischl. The kids hugged each other and sat close by, watching the village roll away.
Then a Metro ride to Kreschatik street and a walk to our apartment. It was pure magic for Lauren and I. We can finally see the end of the road here. A miracle has happened. We have a family!
Tonight we laughed and played and watched Scooby Doo and Tom and Jerry. Lauren made a Chanukah dinner. We lit the menorah and gave gifts and gelt. The kids couldn’t be happier to be with one another and to be with us. We are in heaven.
I got a call from Gregory, our facilitator. More good news. Luda and Svieta got our passports! No wait at all. We have our doctor’s visit tomorrow, then shopping for clothes. We visit the US embassy on Friday, and that’s the LAST requirement. All we have to do after that is wait for our plane…
(Lauren’s End Note: As Michael finished writing, we put the kids to bed. And then I sat down to read this. And in the background now we’re hearing the sweetest, most delightful giggles as Nastia and Sasha share a bed together for the first time in over two years. It’s hard to believe the two of them were ever apart. We could pretty much say the same for the four of us. Talk about your Hanukah miracles.)