The future is not ahead, it is behind us - Eastern wisdom

If you want to know your future,
Look back at how you've lived.
What you thought, what you did.
Then you don't need fortune-tellers here,
The answer you'll find within yourself.
The future is not ahead, it walks behind.

When reading the third part of the book «Parenting», I felt as though the author of the book was sitting with me at the same table, and I was telling him about my personal experience.

In 1988, my son was born. The pregnancy went well, but the delivery was swift.

My doctor was my father-in-law, and to ensure I didn't lose milk, they didn't trouble me with bad news.

I behaved very strangely in the postpartum ward; I felt overwhelmed with joy, constantly wanting to share something with the women lying nearby in the ward. It seemed to me that I had never laughed so much.

When I asked, «Where is my child and how is he?» the doctors told me everything was normal, they only taught me how to express milk so there would be enough. I had enough for two other people's babies.

At that time, maternity hospitals kept mothers for 5 to 14 days depending on the mother's and baby's condition. I was discharged from the maternity hospital on the 5th day, and my father-in-law immediately told me how things were with the baby: «Double asphyxia, overlapping cranial bones, clavicle fracture, pelvic compression, complete absence of reflexes, nasal compression».

They handed me the baby wrapped in a blanket, put me in the car, and drove me to another city where serious specialists, friends of my father-in-law, were waiting.

There, after examining him, the neurologist said: «Girl, you're still young (I was 19), you don't need a cripple, this child will not be healthy. Arrange the paperwork to give up the child, and don't ruin your life, you'll have more children».

Without a second thought, I wrapped the baby in a blanket and said that I wouldn't give him to anyone.

They took me to another hospital, to a pediatrician, and this doctor acted like a real doctor. She didn't «paint castles», but after diagnosing, she said: «It's all in your hands. If you want the child to be alive and healthy, you'll have to work on it».

They placed me and the baby in a children's clinic, where almost all the children had meningitis - an infectious disease that did not affect my son during his stay in the hospital. We stayed in the hospital for 21 days.

I started feeding the baby, weaning him off the tube, «mouth to mouth», then through a pipette, then from a penicillin bottle, then from a regular bottle, already at discharge.

The baby lay under drips in both hands for 8 hours, on planks from an ordinary box, like a crucified person, during this time, it was necessary to straighten his nose with massage and turn his head every 7 minutes by 5 degrees. Doctors and nurses helped, teaching me massage and methods for aligning the skull.

It was during this period, not yet knowing S.N. Lazarev's books, not understanding how to behave in such a situation, I felt warmth, joy, peace, and grace, previously unknown and unfamiliar to me. There was no fear or concern for the future, no fatigue, no regrets or complaints about fate.

Now my son is 21 years old; at two months old, he was already like all healthy children, and now he is studying to be an emergency worker, aspiring to be a doctor later.

I tried to regain that feeling, remembering it, but I never succeeded again - there were feelings of flight and joy, but they were different. Perhaps such feelings are only given when a person stands on the brink of life and death, on the verge of transition from one state to another.

Perhaps those above saw and knew that six years after the birth of my son, I would get S.N. Lazarev's books in my hands, that with every fiber of my soul, I would work on changing it, that I would become different and my view of life would change. I am teaching this to my children now, and I continue to change myself.

The wise men were right: the future is not ahead, it's behind.

Perhaps my life story will help someone.

With gratitude to God...

P.S. My story is absolutely autobiographical, and I would be glad if you use it in your books and it helps someone to get out of a difficult life situation.