Daily Excerpt: Easter at the Mission (Sula): Memorial to Evgeny Yanovich
Excerpt from Easter at the Mission
Zhenya with his daughter,
Julie
Photograph by his wife, Alla Yanovich
MEMORIAL TO EVGENIY YANOVICH
I want to dedicate this book to Evgeniy
(Zhenya) Yanovich, the illustrator of my Christmas book. Even more, I want to
share his exceptional story.
Zhenya was born in Akademgorodok, a tiny town
like San Juan Bautista, outside the large city of Novosibirsk in Siberia.
Akademgorodok, situated on the Ob River, is home to the Siberian Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, which is about all that is there, but that is
enough. The Academy of Sciences is a special institute of some of the most
talented scientists and researchers in Russia.
Zhenya was born with spina bifida. In 1979,
Siberia had no access to antibiotics or the special treatments available to
spina bifida children in some other parts of the world. Doctors held out no
hope for Zhenya’s survival, but he lived.
As he grew up, everyone in his town noticed
his artwork and the immense talent it showed. When his art came to the
attention of professional artists, they recognized Zhenya’s God-given gift, and
the House of Scientists exhibited his work. He was only 12! He had other
exhibits at the House of Scientists later. At the same time, he wrote poetry
that was published in a book, and a documentary was made on his life in his
mid-teen years.
But, ultimately, he became very ill. His legs
did not hold him up well enough to walk. Eventually, gangrene took over both of
his legs and threatened his life. His parents began asking visitors to
Novosibirsk to help.
About that time, my amanuensis, who had
conducted research in Akademgorodok for her dissertation several years earlier,
was conducting workshops for teachers in another Siberian city, Krasnoyarsk,
and a delegation from Novosibirsk traveled there for the training. Zhenya’s
godmother, Natalia, headed the delegation.
As a result of their meeting, Zhenya arrived
in California a year later. (It took a lot of paper work and a lot of time to
get the US Embassy to agree to let him come.) While in the United States,
Zhenya experienced a number of miracles, including unexpectedly meeting the
head of the INS, who helped him get the right paperwork to stay in the USA (he
had come with the wrong paperwork), touching the heart of the third richest man
in the United States at the time (John Kluge), who paid for all his surgeries,
and falling into the care of a nurse who used to be an art teacher, recognized
his talent, and helped him to get a residency at the Virginia Center for
Creative Arts, an honorary place for mature artists.
The miracle associated with the INS supervisor
is that he met Zhenya at a prayer service before his first surgery, a double
amputation of his diseased legs. The INS supervisor but had not planned to be
at the holy day of obligation Mass. He usually attended a different church, but
he got tied up at work and had to go to the closest one, which is where the
priest prayed over Zhenya. Not only that, but this man had been an atheist 20
years earlier. He converted when his blind son received a miracle from a weeping
icon and regained his sight.
The miracle of the billionaire, John Kluge,
came in the form of re-directed mail. The letter requesting Mr. Kluge’s help
was sent to Charlottesville, Virginia, but he lived in New York City. It took
only three days for Mr. Kluge to receive the letter and send a check for half a
million dollars to the hospital for Zhenya’s care along with some money for new
clothes and painting supplies—and then another $500,000 check a year later as
Zhenya’s expenses had mounted.
As for the artist nurse, Julie, how do you
explain Zhenya falling into the care of someone with the very two specialties
he needed? After some time, he even moved in with Julie, and he lived with her
and her son for nearly 15 years before returning to Russia.
God very clearly loved Zhenya. Everyone could
see that not only from the miracles I have already told you about but from even
more that I do not have space to relate.
Zhenya returned to Russia when his parents
moved to Moscow. They were aging, and he wanted to be near them, to help
them—and to be together with his six siblings. In Moscow, he married and
fathered a daughter, whom he named after the nurse he had lived with in the
United States.
Last summer, when his daughter was three years
old, Zhenya took her and his wife to his dacha (summer house) in Burdenko near the
Crimea in Ukraine. There he began drawing the pictures for my Easter book, the
book you have just finished reading. He took time off, however, to go to his
sister’s birthday party.
On the way to the party, he had a massive
cerebral hemorrhage, totally unexpectedly. His relatives found a neurosurgeon to
come to the local hospital. Given a very bad prognosis, the medical personnel
transferred Zhenya to a very special hospital in Moscow, the one that Putin and
all the leaders use. The best doctors took care of Zhenya, but only a few days
later, God welcomed him to his new home, Heaven.
I miss Zhenya very much. Everyone does. In
only 42 years, he did so much and made so many, many friends, to whom he
brought great joy!
I thought it important for you to know a
little bit about his story. Because he touched my life, he has in a small way
also touched your life. That is how God prompts us to build community among
ourselves.
As for the pictures you see in this book, Uliana, Zhenya’s little sister, stepped up when Zhenya’s partially finished pictures could not be found and, in her own different and distinct style, drew illustrations of me for this book. I am so grateful!
To read more excerpts from this book, click HERE.
To read more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE.
To read more posts about Evgeny (Zhenya) Yanovich, click HERE.
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