Tall hollyhocks of pink, white, and yellow surrounded our house, and the grapevines climbing the walls bloomed, exuding a sweet aroma, as if fragrant wine had been spilled at the doorstep. In the room, beneath the dark image of Christ, lay my mother in a coffin, small, yellowed, with an astonishingly youthful face.

Outside, the quince swayed in the wind, the wheat turned golden, and the sky was high and even. Before her death, my mother's consciousness could not withstand the onslaught of experienced chaos. Memories of distant Russia, war, and revolution invaded her life on the poor Gascogna farm. With wide-open eyes, she uttered a strange jumble. But then, as if fighting the chaos in her mind, she spoke with despair: "Lord, how was it all? I am confused..." I helped her straighten her thoughts. She lay there, covering herself with a yellowed, once beautiful hand, looking at us, her children, with a gaze full of suffering, as if asking for forgiveness for the pain caused by her illness. When she felt better, she asked about the household, the haymaking, the garden, and said: "There are many plums this year; if God allows, I will get up and make you jam." But soon, with a frightened look, trying to lift herself, she anxiously said: "You know, this year the Bolsheviks will probably come... they didn't come last year, but this year they will..." I realized that this was a memory of the fear of waiting for the Bolsheviks in Kyiv twenty years ago. Suddenly falling silent, she leaned back on the pillow and soon fell asleep. By night, she said: "How terrible it is that a person is so close to madness... one step and madness begins..." I calmed her. Above the house, the warm sky was sprinkled with stars, the night was quiet, with neither wind nor barking dogs, as if everything was listening. And suddenly, at the rustle and whisper of my mother, I jumped up, but I still did not understand that death had come, that the only terrifying thing for a person would begin: bodily suffering before leaving the earth. A believer, she was not afraid of death, but always feared bodily deformity, and it was approaching: my mother was losing her soul, speech, consciousness.

Dawn came slowly and mercilessly. Outside, the same quince swayed, the same birds sang, the same wheat fields turned golden. With a half-paralyzed hand, my mother pointed to her leg and head, explaining that she understood what had happened to her: a blockage in the vein in her leg, a blockage in the brain, and half-paralysis. Caring for her, I remembered how twenty-five years ago, petrified in my grief, my mother fussed around my dying father in Penza, and it seemed to me that there was no time, that it was yesterday, and now she could no longer be taken away, could not be torn from me, the parting was coming, it was time to say goodbye.

My mother tried to cross herself before the dark visage of Christ, but her hand would not obey. I took her powerless hand and helped bring it to her forehead, chest, shoulders. Suddenly, looking at me, my mother quietly cried. These were the moments that are only experienced when death approaches closely. My mother tried to speak, but everything she uttered was no longer speech, but a stream of inhuman sounds, in which only "Lord... my God..." could be discerned. As if she were praying to God, seeing that we no longer understood her, asking God to help her say something most important, but she had no strength to express it.

It was dawn. Outside, the birds sang. Fixing her fading eyes on me, my mother unexpectedly said: "I will die." That was the last. The forces pulling her from life were gaining the upper hand. We sat in silence; it seemed she could fall asleep, but, half-opening her eyes, she suddenly, with great effort, raised her hand and made a gesture towards us, as if saying goodbye from there, from the path, leaving forever.

Shuddering and moaning, she lay in unconsciousness. Death was swiftly carrying her through the terrible transition from life to non-life. Around was the field silence, the rustle of trees, the voices of plowmen could be heard, and there is no better environment for death than blooming earth. In this silence, it is easier to accompany and to die; here the earth is not frightening, it has merged and blended with the earth.

As in my youth, in Penza, when my father died, death settled in our house, and from its presence, the faces of everyone changed, all spoke in whispers, entered more quietly, life became detached from everyday existence, death seemed to say: "Look how all this is pointless and how simple it is; here I come and take, and very soon I will take you all."

Only the earth fought against death, not allowing itself to be forgotten. From the west, purple rain clouds rolled in, a damp wind blew strongly: it would rain, hay needed to be gathered; the cow came into heat, it needed to be taken to the neighbor's bull. And obeying the earth, we worked and returned to our dying mother, who lay unconscious.

My mother’s eyes were closed, and in the silence, she breathed more and more frequently. We stood by her bed; through the window, I saw little orange-breasted birds jumping and chirping in the branches of the trees. My mother breathed as if in a hurry. My mother was dying, and despite forty years of life, I felt lost, as if the umbilical cord connecting me to the world would soon be cut. My mother took a deep breath, and suddenly everything fell silent. The heart stops. Beating for sixty-five years, it comes to an end; just a moment more, and it will stop. Has it stopped? Not yet. Into the silence from the field burst some distant, incomprehensible cry. And another deep, full-breasted sigh from my mother. And again the gasping, quickened breath, and once more a long, solitary sigh, as if of a sweetly awakening person. After it, from one world to another, a terrible, pulling silence. Here comes the delayed, all-releasing last breath, and perfect silence descends. In this world, her breath is no more... my mother has died...