{"id":4954,"date":"2014-02-21T11:24:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T11:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=4954"},"modified":"2014-02-21T11:29:23","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T11:29:23","slug":"words-on-the-90th-birthday-of-a-dear-friend-and-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/02\/words-on-the-90th-birthday-of-a-dear-friend-and-teacher.html","title":{"rendered":"Words on the 90th Birthday of a Dear Friend and Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

The longer I live, the more I’m learning the importance of celebrating the people whose lives have touched mine\u2014not just after they die, but when they are still alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Emilia Pavlovna” (as she’s been called since I sat in her first-year Russian class during my freshman year of college more than 20 years ago) is one such person. I have been asked to send in recollections from her life on the occasion of her 90th birthday. She and I have been dear friends, virtually family, all these years; and next month, I’ll be raising a toast to her at her birthday party in New Haven, Connecticut.<\/em><\/p>\n

In case it is of any encouragement to you as you celebrate those who have loved you into being and whom you have loved back, here is a recollection and celebration of the life of Emilia Pavlovna:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Emilia Pavlovna was my first-year Russian teacher. Somehow, she taught me to love Russian. In hindsight, I think it was not so much the Russian language but Emilia Pavlovna with whom I fell in love\u2014the evidence of which was a major in Russian and East European Studies.<\/p>\n

There have been so many things to love about Emilia Pavlovna over the 20 some years we\u2019ve been friends. She is, in some ways, a second mother. But our care for one another really started with her care for me after an early first-year Russian test. I was nursing a wounded ego after my first-ever \u201cD\u201d on a test. (We Yalies didn\u2019t get into college, after all, by regularly earning D\u2019s.) But I had sought Emilia Pavlovna out for answers, and she assiduously and energetically (as was her way) walked me through the slew of red marks on my paper with her usual mix of cheerful equanimity and dogged determination to make me a successful Russian student, finally sending me off one hour later with clear instructions: \u201cYou must study, study, study.\u201d She assured me that if I stuck with it I\u2019d soon be earning A\u2019s. (She was right, as she often is.)<\/p>\n

Those \u201cbright college years\u201d were marked by frequent interactions with Emilia Pavlovna over dinner at the Russian table, where she faithfully showed up every week to bear the awkward, stilted Russian of eager students, patiently repeating for them the correct grammatical construction with almost the same motherly dedication to each carefully enunciated word that she paid to each of her students.<\/p>\n

When upon graduation I found myself somewhat insecurely not in the ranks of most of my cohorts, who by and large had followed one of three paths (investment banking, medical school or law school), Emilia Pavlovna quite literally took me in. Her husband, Mr. Hramov, had just died, and she was alone\u2014but she had a spare bedroom. \u201cWell, look,\u201d she said, matter-of-factly. \u201cMr. Hramov isn\u2019t here anymore, and I could use the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days later I had driven my boyfriend\u2019s car up to her house with a couple suitcases of clothing and would spend the rest of the summer taking the bus into work every morning from Emilia Pavlovna\u2019s house in Hamden.<\/p>\n

Living with Emilia Pavlovna for a summer is when we became more like family. For one, she refused to let me pay rent. She insisted on stacking the fridge with every manner of frozen dinner; every morning would make me a lunch, despite my vigorous protests. This was when I came to learn the importance of food for a woman who had grown up in Europe during World War II. Food was one embodiment of Emilia Pavlovna\u2019s love.<\/p>\n

Another was her advice. Somehow she delivers it in such a winning way, that I can rarely begrudge her for it. Over the years I\u2019ve come to know Emilia Pavlovna and what she values from the advice she has given: about the importance of hard work and being a devoted mother to my two children; about being a wife who listens (at least a bit) to and respects her husband; about the priority of family over career.<\/p>\n

That summer Emilia Pavlovna helped me secure my very first real job. She knew I wanted to work in the news business (maybe not unlike what she did working for The New York Times<\/i> in New York before meeting and marrying Mr. Hramov who soon after insisted she quit her New York\u2014New Haven commute); so she called up an old student of hers working at ABC News to tell him I was applying for a job with the John Stossel Unit at 20\/20. \u00a0Not long after, I was moving my suitcases into an itty bitty apartment just a few blocks away from Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n

Emilia Pavlovna was at my wedding. She was at my graduation from Princeton Seminary years later. For me, like for so many of her students who stayed in touch over the years, she has always been just a phone call away, quickly and eagerly engaged in the details of our lives, and always insisting that the tab for the call be on her.<\/p>\n

Few things tell as much about a person as growing old, which I suspect is as much about learning to let go in loss over and over again. I\u2019ve had the privilege of watching Emilia Pavlovna do this gracefully, without complaint, with the same kind of cheerful equanimity\u2014even vivaciousness\u2014and intellectual curiosity that she brought to early morning Russian class all those years. A knee surgery and ensuing near-death infection, chronic pain from a bad back, the loss of her independence, including the home she lived in for many years with Mr. Hramov. Emilia Pavlovna has met the ravages of old age with matter-of-fact acceptance that with every loss or mini death of sorts in this life, there comes a new beginning. New life is always just around the corner.<\/p>\n

This wisdom and joie de vivre<\/i> are gifts that Emilia Pavlovna has imparted to me. I find myself appropriating them when I tell my son in his weekly basketball games to play with heart no matter the outcome. Or when I hold my 4-year-old daughter close at the end of a long day, remembering that this moment is precious and passing away.<\/p>\n

Emilia Pavlovna, on her 90th<\/sup> birthday, can celebrate a life well lived. A life that has loved and played\u2014and for sure \u201cstudied, studied, studied\u201d\u2014 hard. A life lived out in the company of friends, students, neighbors and the church. What more can one say about someone so beloved? \u201cHappy 90th<\/sup> Birthday,\u201d maybe. And \u201cI love and admire you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristina<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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