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Once, back in Russia, I parked my car overnight near my house instead of parking it in the garage. The next morning, I was preparing to take my little daughter to the swimming pool when my next-door neighbor suddenly grabbed my attention. He was so agitated! He spoke very, very fast, pointing to the back of my vehicle. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so I went to him and to my huge surprise, I realized that the back tires were gone. Neat, accurate rectangular red brick structures were supporting the back end of the car!

My first thought was to thank God that my Mom was not around to tell me that I should’ve parked in the garage, given the shaky economic conditions of my Soviet country, but my temporary psychological comfort was abruptly interrupted by her voice.

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“Ha!” She had decided to visit us that shiny Saturday morning. This was, after all, the Soviet Union.

Perhaps God was elsewhere.

My Mom’s voice proclaimed, “This is what happens when the car does not spend the night time in the garage,” but that was not the end of her thoughts. My Mom, who had endured World War II and knew that one needs to survive in any given circumstance, continued, “You can’t leave the car outside. You have to drive it in the garage… Now!

My helpful neighbor quickly installed the spare tire, but the fourth one… was still a problem…

“How can I do it now, Mom?” I asked, repeatedly counting the tires and realizing each time that there were only three. “How can I drive on three tires?” I asked facetiously.

“When you want it you do it!” was her reply.

My feelings bounced between anger and the desire to burst out laughing.

Time has passed, but I still remember one thing: “ When you want it you do it!”

This conversation took place in the days just before my country began to crumble. Life was lining up a generous supply of adversity and turnabouts. My Mom’s words “ When you want it you do it!” echoed in my memory when I needed support. They helped me to cross the Atlantic with almost no money or help.

At that time, the Soviet government allowed emigrants to exchange only $126.00 from local currency. So I had a choice: I could stay and keep what I had, or go…
Going wasn’t easy. A narrow window of opportunity had opened, but just barely. Bureaucracy tried to freeze the status quo with one hand and extort the last kopek from anyone who dared to leave with the other. Ethnic tensions, held in check for decades by Soviet power, found new voices and raised new threats. Not all neighbors were helping with tires. Some were stealing them. Some were trying to steal the country. Go. Definitely go. Tough choices are easy when you have no option. I took my $126.00, my mother and my daughter and dashed for the border.

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Agnostic, Humanist, Skeptic, Spiritual

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