Thank you, Lady Elanor and and Lady Aris Lillylight and Princess of the King and Jonathan Garner, for your very kind welcomes. I feel warmed already.
I joined all three forums, Lady Elanor, because I would love to write in all three different settings.
I do write a lot, but unfortunately I am one of those persons who needs to be hounded constantly to finish something. I will fall in love with an idea, research it and work on it, and then abandon it for another idea. And so it goes on. I write short stories, poetry, have attempted closet dramas and epic poems and screenplays and the beginning of a novel. I want to finish all of the things I have started, but for now I am too haphazard, and active like a happy little puppy who keeps leaping from one toy to the next. One day, I will finish most of those stories and at least one novel. I know it.
Thank you for the brownies, Lady Aris Lillylight. I always love such a treat! As for kittens... I love kittens! I am a dog person, but I love kittens. I love all of God’s cute little animals – and the not-so-cute ones too!
More brownies! Thank you, kind Princess of the King!
...
As for my story, I can summarise it for now, but feel free to ask any questions if ever you have any. I was raised in a regular Russian family, meaning that although I attended religious ceremonies with school and we celebrated certain holidays, we were not truly ‘active’ believers. Religion was part of our culture; not of our soul.
Almost three years ago, my parents and my little brother and I were coming back from the supermarket. Our car crossed the crossroads, and we were hit by a car coming from the right, who had driven through the red light. Our car fell on its side, and fuel leaked out and the car got fire... I was lying on top, and my little brother to the left on me between me and the ground. I got out of my seatbelt and the fire got bigger, and it caught me and my parents and my little brother. We were all literally on fire. Then a man looked down through the window and pulled me through, and the fire still became larger. I remember that I kept yelling to get my little brother and pointed at the car, and they kept pushing me down onto the street, and hit me with jackets and rolled me around. The fire on my legs would go out, and then my coat would start burning again. And then my coat would go out and my pants started burning again. They took me to the hospital first, and then I don’t remember much.
Well, I remember having nightmares and screaming and being dunked in a boiling bath and being skinned several times all over. But later the nurses told me that some of those things were true and some of them must have been hallucinations. And I only really woke up again after more than three weeks. And from there I started remembering things again. I asked about my little brother and how he was doing, but the nurses would tell me to be quiet and sleep because I needed to heal. I kept asking about my little brother. I don’t think I ever asked about my parents. I don’t know why and I still feel bad about it. Like I forgot about them. But I didn’t. I don’t know when it happened, but one day a doctor came in and said that my little brother and my parents had not survived the fire. I don’t know how I felt. I was in a lot of pain. I don’t want to remember the pain I was in for weeks and weeks. My body, I mean. Thinking of that pain now makes me sweat and itch. They had to do so much to me. They couldn’t operate me for several days because I had smoke in my lungs and it was highly dangerous to operate on me then. My left ear was burned off, my nose as well and had to be remade, and my pinkie and ring finger of my left hand were amputated, and I have had tens and tens and tens of operations. A lot of skin grafts. I haven’t seen pictures of myself from that time. I don’t want to. But the nurses said my face was black. All burned. I was very drugged up but still in so much pain. In a way I think that helped me. I couldn’t think about my little brother or my parents at first. I was always in pain. Every moment.
I think that helped. Then I was moved to a different unit after a few months, one less emergent. I hated the nurses. After several months in total, I had to start doing things for myself again. It was so painful. Moving my arm one bit was hell. I hated the nurses, and I started thinking about my little brother. I would comfort him and he me when we felt bad. And I started being very depressed. And I kept asking why. And I don’t know why I did it, but I started praying. I would pray for hours. Sometimes I prayed literally until I passed out from the drugs or the pain. There was one nurse who was devout and we talked a little, especially when I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have any visitors then. My little brother and my parents were my family, and we were both schooled at home by a private teacher, so I didn’t have real friends. The nurse knew this so she kept me a little more company than others. At night I cried a lot and she sang to me. She had a beautiful voice. She sang lullabies to me, and when she caught me praying and I talked to her about God, she also sang hymns. Sometimes when the pain was really, really, really bad, she held my foot (nobody was allowed to touch my hand because it was so sore and very infectious). But she would hold my foot and rub it and sing very silently until I fell asleep. And to me, she became an angel. I prayed more, and she would help me in my wheelchair sometimes and drive me to the hospital chapel. She also sang German hymns to me, and taught me German later on a little bit. She made me love God more, and hate life less. And I came to accept what had happened, in a way.
In total, I stayed almost a year and a half at the hospital. And I prayed every day, and when I could, I would go to the other rooms where other patients were, even in the emergency unit. It took me months to be able to move myself into my wheelchair, and drive myself, but I did it. And I felt great. You can’t imagine how great I felt whenever I could go on a little bit longer. It always hurt a lot, but I kept going. And I went to see other patients, and I talked to them when I could. My voice was still weak, and it is still bad to swallow. I feed mostly on fluids. But I would talk to those patients who were worse off than me because I know what they went through. And when I couldn’t speak, I would stay at their side and hold their hands, or their forehead, or their feet. I prayed for them too.
Remember the nurse? When the doctors first started talking of me being able to go home, social services came to see whether they could place me in a family. But then the nurse asked me if I wanted to come live with her. She was never married and had a very small family left. And I felt that I had been blessed in a way. I miss my little brother and my parents and I miss them so much and I think of them every day and I cry and pray a lot for them. But I feel in my heart that they knew this, and they asked God to send an angel, the nurse, to me, so I could keep going. And I’m going to do that. I struggle and I’m in a lot of pain and everything is difficult, and some days are hell, and I look horrible, but I KNOW that this is how it will be, and whenever I pray, I feel blessed and I feel warm and in God’s arms. And I know it’s never going to be easy for me, but I have my family and the nurse and God in my heart and in my soul, and I am blessed.
Kittens are always available should you ever want one. 
But welcome anyways! 
