Tania

Salute to Tania

Mom never liked the saying "clothes make the man", she believed that heart, mind and actions make the humans, or aliens. We came as we were to celebrate her life with a smile, because that's how she would have wanted it.

Dearest Mom, Our Love For You Will Be Always In Our Hearts.

Tania was born in the ancient city of Nizhny Novgorod, in a home where education was one of the first priorities; therefore after finishing high school, she went to university (botanical /agricultural science) while dealing with miseries of the second world war. Despite extremely difficult times, she managed to survive and complete her studies. Soon after trying to pursue her profession, she realized that her "heart was not with leaves and microscopes, but with the people and animals", oh how she adored those animals! In the early days for a brief period of time she worked as an editor for the local newspaper and even as a dog and horse trainer.     Wisely, she wasn't in a hurry to have kids, because after getting her diploma, she wanted to make sure she had a good secure job and some stability to provide for us. Thanks Mom! The time passed by, Tania got married, had children ... and when she moved to Sochi, only then she knew what she really wanted to do, as unlikely as it seemed at first, an excursion guide. That job involved constant travels and meeting new groups of interesting people on a daily basis. She loved her job and worked there for many, many years, until fate brought her to New York.       Tania was a true Humanist, and therefore she always considered others before herself. She helped a lot of people and animals through her life, always leaving a warm and glowing light behind her, anywhere she went. Mom knew a few languages so she offered herself as a translator on a voluntary basis. People loved her; she touched many lives with her kindness. She was also an extremely funny person, had this unforgettable and unique sense of humor. She made even the grumpiest people laugh.     In her spare time Tania loved to read and she read a lot, she had the most amazing memory, and one of her many talents was writing beautiful poetry, the writing in general. I will never forget one of her hilarious stories; it was called "Why Seika the Cat should be the President". Tania was so funny, yet when it needed to be - extremely serious person. She was very interested in ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, also in ancient Roman philosophy that she knew by heart. When she was younger she loved to dance and sing, she loved LIFE and didn't see death as finale, she believed in reincarnation, and to the "end" she was loving, cheerful and alert. Her heart may have stopped, but her spirit /energy refused to do so ... "Rest in Peace", was never her motto ...  :)       So wherever you are now, dear Mom ... happy and adventurous journey to you! Hope you'll encounter some wonderful people on your travels from all the centuries, that you always wanted to meet and also reunite with your loved ones including your sweet Lucy the cat.

We Love You So Very Much!

Tania's family home, where she spent her childhood and youth. It was built on the site of a crater and was over 200 years old.

Tania's Furry Kids

Is there something to It - Reincarnation

All that Is, will eventually die out and recycle itself in to something else. As we all know, the energy simply cannot vanish, it'll change its form, that is the scientific fact. What is not so scientific but also plausible, the energies of some who no longer occupy this space/time are still with us or even within us.       Yes, I am talking about reincarnation, at least the way I understand and interpret it. Imagine that someone was working on an extremely important project, but their life was cut short, or they simply didn't have time to finish whatever he / she started; wouldn't they want to come back if they could, to continue whatever they were not able to finish in their lifetime? The energy of the deceased is still out there somewhere, some goes back to the stars, some want to stay and to continue their existence through others. Isn't it possible the energy force of the mind, which is infused with subatomic particles, would be attracted to a similar mind set, etc ...  entangled and blended in with particles of that living, breathing person, who ever it might be, or even interacting with a few different minds. These people may even feel somehow this action of energy and that could manifest itself in that person's reaction, like for example, suddenly having an urge to write a book, paint or play a violin...       The person in question will never loose his / her original identity, just a few elements will be added, and they would easily adjust to it and maybe accept this as new found talents. Sometimes though it may cause confusion, as some unexpected, strange memories could surface out of the blue and the person would be bewildered by it, usually temporarily. In some cases it may lead to a to total life change. If that IS the way for energy to find a new  "home", THIS makes it a "simple explanation".       I feel that it works in a similar way to this; if the recipient of a newly donated organ, (say a liver for example) non drinker, suddenly feels like having a pint of beer or craves some foods, that regularly they were not accustomed to; the holder of the new heart, has a sudden desire to study biology or arts, maybe ancient Chinese history; If you put it all into consideration - there is something to it.       Despite some skepticism, scientific studies were held on these phenomena, although the results were inconclusive and more research is necessary, it is definitely happening and it is not a rare occurrence.       Just as the DNA within your body, the Mind holds the information, an invisible memory card if you will, like the computer, and when the person dies, it has to go somewhere. Sometimes those energies intermingle with the living, and that 's how I see reincarnation.

Tania’s Signs / Synchronicities.

On August 19, I was writing a short story on reincarnation for my website, as soon as I finished it, and put the full stop/period on, the phone rang, it was from the place where my mom was residing for the last few years, the nurse told me to come over immediately as Tania "was passing". She died as soon as nurse put the phone down. My Mom believed in reincarnation, and because of this sad synchronicity that story forever will be connected to my mom, that's why I read it at my Mom's "Memorial", where a few other unusual things occurred.     I had met all the people that came to give their last respects to Tania, only one person, that I was not familiar with, was the partner of my Mom's nurse, who had cared for her a couple of years ago and was really fond of her and she of him. Everything was going as it was supposed to; people were drinking champagne, eating chocolate, talk, hugs and memories of Tania with a smile. Strange thing was, when we looked back at all the photos, there was an orb covering this guy's face, as if Tania was studying him. There were three more orbs apart from that one; the large one - above all of us, when the picture was taken of the group, the other, smaller one - right inside of my left hand, (as if she was holding it) when we were blowing out the candles at the end of this gathering, and also the tiny one by the table where champagne and boxes of chocolate were located. Interesting thing was, that all of the four orbs were different in size, according to the situation. It looks like Tania was checking that everything was in order, that's my Mom!      I set up a small, kind of  'shrine' for my Mom at home; with her photo, flowers, candles etc. One morning, (three days after her "Celebration of Life") I was just about to make a cup coffee when I heard a clicking noise from the CD player, which was off, so my eyes automatically went on that corner of the room (exactly where Mom’s shrine was) and immediately after that, the three lights went on, and shone right at her picture, then the coffee maker's clock started blinking. Nothing else was affected by this short circuit moment. Although it happened before; CD player making noise, and the clock blinking etc, while short blackout, but all of those three lights never went on by themselves, as they have to be switched on individually or with remote control. Usually we use those lights for parties and call them "Happy Lights".      The last sign was the most unusual of all. There's no secret about how much I love Giordano Bruno, (Mom certainly knew about it) I created much art with his image and wrote songs about that wonderful being, but I had this artistic blockage for a while. After 25 days since my Mom was "gone", I had this urge to paint Giordano, and for some unknown reason, I wanted to make his famous statue in Rome to come alive. When I finished it and "Giordano was looking at me", I started thinking and wondering to myself, that if the creator of the statue, would mind me doing that.  I was hoping that he would be pleased, as we were on the same page in many ways; both of us were free thinkers, as Giordano was, and love him enough to create his statue. Ettore's mesmerizing masterpiece was a gigantic monument, Yeva's - very small, but the size of the statues doesn't matter in this case, what matters is the Thought. I knew the name of that amazing sculptor, Ettore Ferrari, but suddenly I wanted to know more about him and to see what he looked like. The only image that I could find was an old photo (it looked like from the late 18 hundreds) there was some likeness between Ettore and Giordano. I wondered if he used himself as a model to create the face of the philosopher (incidentally, Ferrari was a philosopher himself) on the statue, many artists are accustomed to do so. What really was compelling in all that, and even brought tears to my eyes, was the date of Ettore Ferrari's death ... it was exactly the same date as my Mom's, August 19th. Yet another synchronicity connected to Giordano Bruno!

The "Final Journey"

We needed to take a trip to the beach to honor Mom's wish, and scatter her ashes in to the ocean. I didn't want to leave it until next year, so about three weeks before our journey, we found a nice, ocean front hotel not too far from the marina and the sailboat, named "Enchantress", Alien randomly selected a suitable sailboat, then I remembered what Mom told me once; apparently my father called her Enchantress, when they met. What a nice synchronicity.      Only the day before leaving for the coast of South Carolina, we learned hurricane Joaquin was heading that way, and the advisory was, not to travel. It was too late to cancel the trip, as the hotel and sailboat were already booked earlier. So we were stuck between a rock and a hard place and despite a grim weather forecast, we still decided to go ahead with our plans, practically by "flipping the coin", but not without worries ... the weather conditions could change in seconds in open seas even when it's good initially, in our case it wasn't good at all. We left early Wednesday morning, September 30th, the weather, despite awful predictions, was surprisingly pleasant on the way there, just before we arrived to our destination, it started to rain, but it didn't last long. We found our hotel and then marina in a place called Little River and even checked on the sailboat "Enchantress", that was supposed to take us to the open seas the following morning. Unfortunately because of the hurricane the weather outlook was dreadful for the next several days and the Captain of the boat said that he will call us the night before or even in the morning to let us know whether or not we could sail. It didn't look promising, but just in case, we bought some red roses (for the ceremony) on the way to our hotel. It was late in the day, but luckily there were half-a-dozen red roses left, called 'Hot Lady' in Mom's very favorite tone of red, I thought to myself, that's exactly what I was planning to get, six red roses (the cosmic number six... :) and there it was ... the last bunch, awaiting for Tania?      We were walking on the beach that evening, waiting for the call (while a short dry spell) and wondering what tomorrow will bring. Very early the next morning the Captain texted us, that he'll be ready when we are. Oh, we were so ready, in fact we decided to go one hour earlier, from previous arrangement, that was a good decision. Exactly 7 AM our Captain John arrived at the marina and off we went on that unpredictable sail. The Enchantress moved slowly through Little River inlet, then it took off and about in one and a half hour, we were in open Ocean, three miles away from the shore line, this time in North Carolina waters. Amazingly the weather was still holding up for us! We were sitting outside, right upfront, while the bow was cutting through the waves, it was simply enchanting.      Before we turned around, Captain John said: ..."this is it" ... and started reading beautifully, the prepared poem for Tania and played through the speakers Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night" one of her favorite songs, while Alien was scattering Tania's ashes, I was throwing roses in to the waters for Mom, one for each of the elements, also one - for Giordano. It was so surreal... and when we finished, to top those moments of love, this one little bird landed on board, looked at us, tweeted a couple of times and flew away, only to return once more later and follow the boat for a while. Even our Captain was surprised, he said, that it never happened before in his countless sails. We were far away from the shore for this to happen, seagulls and pelicans were all over the place of course, but this was a dry land bird. Captain John noticed that we're getting emotional and offered to us a glass of red wine, good timing; a few drops went down the ocean, as a symbolic gesture to salute Mom. The sail back was uneventful, except Alien started getting sea sick, luckily it didn't last long. It was such a relief to go back; after the ceremony was over, we felt like a heavy weight was lifted. We talked and took some photos, etc. Captain John was great; what could've been extremely stressful and dangerous trip, he made it that much better, through all three hours the Captain tried to make us as comfortable as possible, by telling us stories and even letting Alien to help him with the sails and me ... take over the wheel, to be a "captain Yeva", for a bit, It felt like 'out of body' experience and I wondered if it was "captain Tania" who was steering the wheel (see old photo below).      One story our Captain told, was specifically compelling; about half way out to the ocean, just 'out of the blue', the Captain burst out with this 'Socrates' philosophy on death'. That was strange because Tania on occasions quoted that great humanistic philosopher too and Giordano Bruno, also the humanist himself, highly regarded Socrates as his mentor. Interestingly John Kessler, the author of the book "The Forgotten Philosopher" called Giordano, the "14th century Socrates", even though Giordano lived in 16th century, (an obvious misquote on dates) but it's the connection that mattered in this case. Even the boat's room, down below was lovely with the large 'Sun' wall decoration, that too put a smile on my face, as Giordano and Tania were the ''Sun Worshipers'' :) Was it sign from Mom?! ... Perhaps! There was another tiny synchronicity: while by the coast, there was supposed to be the annual Humanistic Conference somewhere in proximity. Mom was humanist.      Then finally ... we were safely on land again and Captain John drove us right up to our car on his marina cart, as soon as we said our goodbyes, it started to rain and we left for the hotel. It was pouring down on and off that day, but luckily when we were in the restaurant or somewhere else under a roof. The next morning we were ready to go down for breakfast, but the elevator stopped working, so we took the stairs, what's ten stories down, compared with a sail in stormy seas :) In the breakfast parlor, we found out that many rooms in our hotel had a loss of power all night, I bet that wasn't fun; no light, AC, TV or radio, no internet, etc. We didn't have a clue that the blackout had occurred, because we had power. Couldn't believe it, the luck seeming to follow us; all those pockets of good weather just at the right moment; at first, a very easy travel to the beach, then just three hours that we needed to sail, and of course, safe return home.      The next morning, we decided to checkout the Wax Museum, it was interesting and fun. After the museum we were looking for some vegetarian restaurant, or at least something suitable for evolved humans to eat, while losing hope with each mile, suddenly we noticed this Grand Opening for a new Chinese place "Happy Panda", well, with name like that we thought, there  might be a hope for a lovely meatless meal, and we were right. The following day we discovered a nice Indian restaurant. Coming back to the hotel it was pouring down rain, the roads started turning in to shallow rivers, but we made it safely and the elevator luckily was working again, so we didn't have to climb up ten stories high. All night there was gusty winds and torrential rain and from one of the windows, we noticed road-crew workers putting out some signs and road blocks. We were wishing for the best, but tried to be prepared for the worst, truly expecting our car to be submerged by morning, but after all that rain, the car was fine (it was parked on a hill, as our original parking place have been taken, and it WAS flooded) the next morning the water was receding just enough for us to get the hell out of that place and we managed to smoothly "sail" home through all the areas.      While driving back on the empty highway, there were no cars at all, except for ours, only same abandoned cars on the side the road. Had this eerie feeling, it kind of reminded me of "Zombie Highway", a computer game, but tragically- all was for real. Little did we know, that only moments later, the Highways that we were driving on, will turn in to the roaring rivers; homes and cars will be under water, dams collapsed, roads and some cemetery washed away and caskets floating on surface, many people lost everything and some even their lives. There's nothing more powerful that the force of nature and unfortunately it's rebelling now more than ever, because of the abuse this planet has endured from human activities. Obviously all the prayers in the world won't help, it never does, what the victims of Joaquin need ( the people and the animals ) right now is Help. Please donate - we did ... in Tania's name! Oh ... what a tragedy! I feel so sad and shaky even writing about it.      At last the first peek of the mountains, what a lovely sight it was! Such a joy to walk in through our front door and relax with a nice cup of tea and that's exactly what we did, only seconds later to find out from TV screen and realized the true horrors that somehow we avoided just in the nick of time, the historic catastrophic event that happened once in a thousand years ... being there, right in the middle of it all, against all the odds everything went for us as planed... how lucky can One be?!

"Enchantress"

* Thank you *

Lauria, Jesse, Jan and Paula, Denis, KC, Big Ben, Robert, John and Lynn, Nicole, Joyce, Doug and Russell, Ellen and Donny, Helen, Monte, Susie, Lindsey, Dee and Steve, Lynn and Bill.   Constance, Joan, Ginny, Roy, John, Missy and Ron, Tanya and Vadim, Masha, Judson, Laura and Chris, Jerry, John, Rebecca and Nelson, Lorena and Dave, Angie, Giordani, William, Zen, Ann-Luise, Kim, Lauren, Ken Aida and Robert, Trevor, April, Kathy, Carol, Sarah, Andie, Molly, Marlene, Priscilla, Marina, Byron.   Lori (MA), Izea and Raya (NY), Mila (NY), Luda (FL), Lee, Budd and Katherine (PA), Joshua and Lauren (PR), Pygoya (HI), Michelle (SC). Terry (UK), Jana (MX), Denka (UK), Larry (UK), Diane (UK), Amrita (UK), Lyalya, Oleg, Lillya and Sasha (RU), Ira and Anya (RU), Glenda (NZ), Rolf (CH), Aleonka and Roy (UK), Krista (UK).   Thank you ALL for the kind words and support: cards, phone calls, emails, obituary touching messages, and of course thanks for many hugs and heart warming wishes.   Thank you for the gift cards ... the food and wine that was left on our doorstep. Thank you for donating to the animals (Humane Society) in Tania's memory. Thank you for sending Tania's name in to space to orbit Mars. Thank you for the lovely potted and bouquets of flowers.   Thank you for caring and being there for us.   Thanks to everyone at 'Aston Park' (Health Care Center / assisted living facility) who gave Mom much support and loving care through the last few years of her life.   Thanks to the "Star Gazer" florist for the exquisite flowers and arrangements.   Thanks to Groce funeral home for the outstanding, courteous work, which made it that much easier for us, in such difficult times.   Last but not least, Thanks to Captain John for taking us with MOM's ashes for that unpredictable sail on the "Enchantress". Thank you for keeping us safe in stormy weather, providing the unforgettable and excellent service.   On a personal note I want to thank my Alien for the incredible help and support through this extremely hard period in my life.   If we didn't mention your name just yet it will be added later, as the condolences still are coming in.

Click a link below to see four more galleries...

Back in Time	Faces of Tania	Tania's Three Tiny Treasures	Ancient Ancestors

Click the play button to start slide show below