SLOVENIA'S 5 CORE VALUES

He said to my father with sincere respect Stricker, and my mother aunty, as if it had always been part of our family.

He was a quiet and simple man with a good heart, but his actions spoke louder than words. Sometimes, when the winters were harsher and the snow fell knee-deep, the paths to the houses became difficult to walk. My mother and father were getting on in years. We children made our own homes; my sisters in Maribor, my brother and his family in Mlace, and me and my family in Slovenske Konjice. The house was often lonely in the white silence in winter.

But when the snow fell, the silence did not last long.

The sound of a tractor came from a distance. Vlado, who lived only a twenty-minute walk away, had already started the snow plough, got on the tractor and slowly drove to my parents' house. He arrived before work. He worked in the shop. He was a shop manager in Železná in Poljčany. He started spitting without being called or asked. For him, it was the most natural thing in the world.

He shoveled the snow patiently and thoroughly; around the house to the barn, the woodshed and the path. My mother stood at the window and watched, and my father always stepped outside, even though he was cold, just to reach out and say, »How much do I owe?«

»It's OK!« Vlado replied. His father thanked him, and he replied modestly, »We're in the same boat, uncle.« His mother usually made him tea, but he didn't go in the house. He drank it sitting on the tractor because he was in a hurry to get to work.

He never expected to be paid, he never mentioned tiredness. His help was not a duty, but a decision of the heart.

Today, my parents are gone. If I were still alive, I would be about a hundred and twenty years old. Vlado is gone too; much too young for his age. The house stands in silence, the winters are not what they used to be, but when the first snow falls, that familiar sound of the tractor and the feeling of security that someone is thinking of you always comes back to my mind.

Memories of goodness do not fade. They are not covered by time, not dissolved by forgetfulness. They remain like a warm trace in a cold morning.

The true greatness of a man is not in how high he stands, but in how quietly and faithfully he reaches out to someone who needs his hand.

                                                                                Justina Strašek, 23. 2. 2026