At the age of six, I first confronted the eternal question: what happens after death? My grandmother had read me a story from a book by Seton-Thompson, where, often at the end, my beloved animals died. I mourned each one individually. Suddenly, I understood the central message of these stories: death is real. It could happen to anyone, to my mother, and to me. But what comes after?

My neighbor, Baba Valya, told me that we simply get switched off, like a television. My grandmother, who was teaching literature, was at school. I could barely wait for her to return to ask about this television theory.

"Grandma, so death—is it real? Do not just animals die?" My grandmother wasn’t prepared for the question. She vaguely replied that Seton-Thompson was a writer, and he made things up.

I realized I needed to wait for my mother. She worked as an editor and came home very late, but I struggled to keep my eyes open, fidgeting in bed, ready to burst out with my question as soon as I heard her voice. "So, is there death or not? Did Seton-Thompson make it up?" My mother, exhausted as always, tried to distract me with talk about getting up early the next day. Her evasions seemed to imply there wasn’t. I was reassured and fell asleep.

The next morning, I decided to ask my grandfather. He always told me the truth. "Yes," he said unexpectedly sadly, "we do get switched off, like a television. But that will happen a long, long time from now."

I trusted my grandfather, and I sank into a murky despair. Four years later, he proved himself right: he left us one morning, without waiting for his eggs. "They switched off Grandpa!" I thought in horror, touching his cold, white hands.

Adults—grandmother, mother, father, and many others—rushed in, and I was sent to a friend’s house. I wasn’t allowed at the funeral, and my grandfather began visiting my dreams: not as he was, but lifeless, switched off. Waking from these dreams, I felt a cold despair. Something was off; this wasn’t truly my grandfather.

One day, I went outside, to our old hammock at the summer house. Clouds floated above, shining against the blue. Suddenly, an epiphany struck me. There was Grandpa! The real, alive Grandpa! Behind the clouds! This certainty came like a revelation, illuminating me. There he was, watching me from behind the gentle clouds. He was fine, not switched off at all.

At seventeen, applying to university, I was terribly anxious. It felt like my whole life depended on these exams. My sleep was disturbed, and my mother gave me some sleeping pills, but they only gave me a headache. One late summer day, I went outside, sat on the swing, leaned back, and saw them... the clouds. They were painted on the sky in rosy strokes. From that blue-pink sky, peace poured down on me.

The clouds would keep drifting through that deep blue whether I passed the exams or not. This realization opened up an eternity to me, a profound calm. I fell asleep easily for the first time. My clouds saved me.

The third time I heard about the healing power of the sky was from the daughter of a friend who suffered from anxiety disorder. Of course, this is a complex illness that requires multifaceted treatment. But she said something remarkable: during an anxiety attack, you should go outside and look at the sky. It should help, at least a little.

Since then, I’ve loved watching clouds. An incredible, sweet assurance pours down from above: there they are, all of them—my beloved father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, my dear husband... alive in my shining, eternal clouds.

I try to look up at the sky more often.

Original article: radiovera.ru/tri-vzgljada-na-nebo-anna-leonteva.html