I have the utmost respect for her and I often joke that she is like a second mother to me.
She grew up in her native Slovenske Konjice and, in addition to her demanding job as a security guard, she volunteered as a caregiver for the elderly because it gave her a positive drive. As Konjice is a small place where everyone knows everyone, she soon learned that her former teachers, a physics professor and his wife, who was also a teacher, were living alone in their old age, without family support. She simply knew that she could not let them down.
The teacher was once a powerful man with lightning sharpness and ruthless precision. His voice echoed like thunder in the classroom, but his pupils knew that behind that stern exterior lay a love of knowledge and a hidden affection. His wife was his complete career opposite - gentle, warm, with immense patience for every student who ever stood stammering in front of the blackboard. Together they were invincible until age began to "break" them.
When Natasha first crossed the threshold of their house, she was stunned, she couldn't believe her eyes, she couldn't understand. The air was heavy, the furniture covered with a thin layer of dust, the tea pots half empty. The gentleman was sitting on the sofa staring at the emptiness, and his wife, with her chin up, was trying to maintain the dignity that (still) adorned her.
"Why are you here, Natasha? You know we don't like pity," the helpless woman said quietly.
"I didn't come to pity you," Natasha replied, firmly rolling up her sleeves. "I came here because I care, you reed."
Soon, the couple relented, realising that they needed help. Thus began the story of three souls who forged an unbreakable bond in the last years of Tršica's and their teacher's lives.
Natasha took on the role that a family should have - she cooked and brought them food, drove them to doctors' appointments, but most importantly - she kept them company. Every afternoon she sat with them and listened to their stories. They were not few. The teacher often wandered into the past, his thoughts running away like particles in an accelerator, but Natasha never interrupted him. She smiled and repeated his words, saying that she was helping him to stay here, in the present.
When "the reed" was ill, she was by her side, holding her hand and wiping her forehead as the feverish waves of illness swept over her. As she lay dying, she whispered to Natasha, "Don't leave him alone."
And Natasha didn't leave. She kept her promise.
After the funeral of the "reed", the teacher became just a "shell" of himself. Every day he would sit in the same corner, lightly rubbing his fingers on the wooden back of the chair where Mrs "Reed" had sat for decades, and silently repeating her name. Natasha cooked him his favourite dishes, read to him from the books he had once loved, but she knew - time is limited for all of us mortals.
When she walked into the room one morning and found him motionless, a slight smile on his face, she knew he had gone to the reed. She sat down next to him and read to him one last time from the book he loved.
She did not cry on the day of the funeral. She had long ago shed tears at his head. She stood by the grave, among the few who came to say goodbye, and felt deep gratitude. She had been his disciple and, in recent years, his (their) daughter.
They have both been in the afterlife for a few years, but today she is still fighting for their lives, in the beautiful memories and moments she has spent with them.
Zala Krupljan, 24. 2. 2025
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