To Szilvi Tóth, who couldn’t live to be twelve
Searching for moment of peace in the raging storm of my life, I used to go to the graveyard of our hometown. Walking among the ashes of the countless of past lives, watching the worn epitaphs, lopsided tombstones, faded names, and tried to recall the memories of those who passed long before I was born. Those who have been forgotten decades ago – I tried to conjure up their image, the way they must have lived, and fathom the mystery of the darkness they faded into. Some of the dates under names only showed a couple of years between birth and death, filling me with dismay as I wondered with clenching heart about the people in their short little lives, unaware that, in a remote, hidden corner of the graveyard, in the shadow of an immense silver pine, I would find your childhood picture on one of the little graves…
How could I forget, as you would remember also, the devotion with which our shy, pure children’s hearts loved each other…
