A Sverdlovsk citizen who lost his wife spoke about life with three daughters: “Keep in public”

Now their eldest daughter Anna is 9 years old, Masha is 6 years old and little Dasha is a little over a year old.

“I am not at all a hero, I do not stick out my life and do not strive to be written about,” Svyatoslav immediately told us. “I just do what anyone in my position would do. But if my story helps someone, at least one person, then everything is not in vain …

Slava and Irina met at a disco in their hometown of Polevskaya. Svyatoslav was very young – he was 18, Irina was three years older. “Everything, like everyone else,” says Svyatoslav. “We started dating, four years later we got married, after a year and a half our first daughter was born, then the second …”.

Slava got the profession of a welder, Ira worked as a manicure and pedicure master in a beauty salon.

“We really lived in perfect harmony,” Svyatoslav shares. – There was no such thing as someone running away somewhere to spend time separately. On the contrary, we always tried to be alone, without phones, without gadgets, without TVs … We wanted to listen to each other and be close.

The spouses did not plan a third child, but God, as they say, gave it to them. “Each child was a gift, an unexpected gift,” says Slava.

– Were you happy with your third daughter, or maybe you still wanted a son more?

– When Irina became pregnant for the second time, I thought that I wanted a second girl. Thank God, the girl was born. And when Irina became pregnant with her third child, I again dreamed of having a girl. On the contrary, I was afraid that I would treat the boy differently, and I wanted to have only daughters.

“I don’t blame anyone”

Svyatoslav says that he and his wife have always looked after their health. Once every six months, Irina went to the gynecologist, and to Yekaterinburg. She didn’t have any illnesses.

… On Irina’s VKontakte page, her post dated June 6, 2022 has been preserved, when a happy mother posted a postcard from the hospital about the birth of her third daughter, all friends and relatives congratulated her on this event. Dasha was born quite large – 4.3 kg. All of their girls were born large, so my mother had a caesarean section all three times.

This time everything seemed to go well, just like the previous two times. Irina and her newborn Dasha were discharged home, but on the 11th day the woman had a fever. At first they did not attach any importance to this – they thought, well, the restructuring of the body, the flow of milk, something else … But the temperature did not subside. Then Svyatoslav took his wife to the hospital in Yekaterinburg (60 km from their city). They found a postpartum complication, inflammation in the gynecological part.

Irina stayed in the hospital for 10 days, on June 29 she was discharged. My husband was on sick leave all these days with his daughters. But when Svyatoslav, carefully supporting his wife, led her home, she became ill already at the entrance, when climbing from the second to the third floor. She began to lose consciousness. Irina just managed to enter the apartment, her daughters ran up to her, hugged her … This was the last time they saw her. The ambulance came but couldn’t help. After 50 minutes, my mother was gone.

“Cause of death: a blood clot broke off. I don’t blame anyone, the doctors did their job, fought to the end for her life, ”Svyatoslav wrote on his page.

“I didn’t even dig into the medical reasons,” he says. – We have a family friend – a former operating surgeon, he tried to explain to me, but I interrupted him and said: “Let’s close this topic and we will not return to it anymore.” Because it won’t return anything.

As the man says, the main thing that kept him afloat in those days was faith in God. And, of course, the help of relatives – both mothers, his and Irina’s sisters. And the parishioners of their temple also helped – whoever could. “We felt one big family around us,” Svyatoslav said.

“Just hug them, listen…”

The young man was left with three daughters in his arms, one very tiny …

– How did you cope?

– When Irina went to the hospital, she slowly handed over all her affairs to me. I did everything under her dictation. As for little Dasha, I had experience caring for newborns. I have always helped Irina both around the house and with the children.

Of course, after her departure it was unbearably hard. It’s one thing when you expect your mom to come back in 10 days from the hospital and take everything under control. And then it happens that we will never have it again …

A parishioner of our church, Olga Evgenievna, a retired pediatrician, helped me. She came to our house immediately, the next day. And she began to come in, examine Dasha, is everything okay, help with the girls. If there were any questions about medicine or one of the girls fell ill, I immediately went to her … She still comes to us sometimes.

For me, the most important thing is that the children are supervised. And in this regard, I could ask for help from one of my relatives. And to tidy up, cook food – I never burdened anyone with these duties. I immediately realized that I would have to take everything on myself.

The girls, of course, suffered the departure of their mother very hard.

– There were tantrums, tears – how is it, why is mom, where is God, and so on, – says Svyatoslav. – Fuel was added to the fire by the children in the yard, who asked questions: “Where is your mother?”. And they immediately burst into tears … And I told them: let’s stay in public, remove tantrums, snot, and when you are with me, then you will roar. And I cried with them. I explained to them that we should not be angry at the whole world now, but on the contrary, we need to unite and support each other.

… When I went to the funeral of my wife, it was my Golgotha. I walked and saw that the world around had not changed, that people lived and live the same way, they smile the same way. And for me, for my daughters, the world turned upside down.

But if a person in such grief will go over in his head all the time, and what would happen if … But what if I did something differently, and this would not happen, etc., then he will just get away crazy. Not all of this depends on us … I would also advise everyone not to drink alcohol at such moments. You begin to feel sorry for yourself, justify yourself to yourself that there is nothing left, etc. That’s how they sleep. I experienced these moments in a sober state.

The most difficult time for them was in the evening, before going to bed. Slava admits that there were moments of despair when he did not know what to do. And so he began to read the prayers that he knew. Only in this way the girls calmed down and fell asleep.

– You just lie down with them, hug them, listen … That’s how we slowly coped.

“If I meet someone, then thank God, but no, no way”

Now the man is on maternity leave to care for a child up to three years. The eldest Anya went to the third grade on September 1, and Masha still goes to kindergarten. Dasha, too, has already been sent to a nursery-kindergarten. Thanks to this, Dad now has time to complete individual orders for welding work.

– What is the most difficult thing for you in raising girls?

“To be honest, I don’t think about it. Do you know what they say? Do what you must, and come what may. That’s what I do. Of course, there are fears that the absence of a mother can somehow harm their psyche. At first, I worried a lot about this. But then I said to myself, remember, as in the children’s song – “Dad can do anything, but he can’t be a mother.” Therefore, one should not even try to replace mother, because mother is mother. My priest advised me to go to a psychologist, she turned out to be a wonderful woman, and we even became friends. She gave me recommendations on how to raise girls, came to visit us, brought gifts for the girls. We are still in contact with her to this day.

Nine-year-old Anya is already trying to help her father around the house. The main thing in raising children, says Svyatoslav, is not loading them with some sections and circles, but for the child to grow up to be a good and honest person. They always talked about this with Irina.

– Besides the fact that we read books, fiction, I talk to them and explain what is good and what is bad. I tell them that wealth is not the main thing in life, but more important is how you behave in life, what kind of relationship you have with your family and people around you.

Dad prepared for school in advance, bought Anya a briefcase and all accessories at the beginning of summer. And I bought clothes just before September 1, since Anya grew up over the summer. As Svyatoslav said, he physically does not have time to go shopping with the girls and choose clothes for them for a long time, so the father himself buys everything for them to his taste, knowing their sizes.

Considering that the girls grow up without a mother, it can be assumed that Svyatoslav spoils them and is afraid to be too strict with them … Is this true? I ask.

– This is a very important point. At first, I really turned a blind eye to a lot of their behavior. But then he began to communicate with them, as always. I am a strict father. If an act deserves punishment, then it will be. No, of course, you don’t think, I analyze the situation, how, because of what everything happened, and so on. But everyone knows perfectly well that dad will not be silent. There is no such thing that I feel sorry for them … In general, the pity that people try to show to a person who has experienced such a situation does not carry anything good. I do not want to cause this pity for myself, nor for the children to be pitied. If you did badly, you will get what you deserve. In general, as I am convinced, children who go unpunished easily fall under the influence of bad company, and may even start using illegal drugs. Because they know they won’t get anything for it.

Now that a year has passed, the pain of leaving mom has subsided, and dad and the girls often remember her, but they remember her in a lighter way. Somewhere they will cry together, somewhere they will remember funny stories related to their mother.

Girls need a mother – at least a stepmother, and Svyatoslav understands this. His priest, to whom he confesses, said that in a year it would be possible to think about a new marriage.

“I’m not specifically looking for anyone,” says Svyatoslav. – If I meet someone, if it happens, then thank God. If not, then no, it’s not up to me. Not everything is so simple, it’s a big responsibility, a big burden. Not everyone will go for that. It’s easy to say – “Yes, I can handle everything!”, But a month or two will pass – and the “breathing” may end. And then for the girls it will be another trauma. So far, I don’t think about it, I just live one day, I do what I need.