Tolstoy: “It is possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”

Because of people like Mama Zoya, I learned to speak Russian. It mattered greatly to her (and to all my friends) that I understood their stories. They yearned for the good of Russia to be shared, yearned for us to care about each other – and they still do.

Slowly, I came to see that caring is more than love. It didn’t matter if you agreed with someone or if it was hard to get along. There was a moral demand to care. Mama Zoya was not naive. (How could she be, with such a life?) She was constantly observing events and proclaiming, “What kind of stupidity is this?!” Still, the world’s stupidity didn’t obviate what she saw as the need to care.

By the time the sun had risen through the mountain ash and into our window, Mama Zoya would leave me to write in my journal. Soon the courtyard door would begin swinging open and shut, with the morning breeze blowing in friends and neighbors – each to be given a cup of tea and something to eat. There was no such thing as too many guests, an awkward time to arrive, or the need to knock.

“From generation to generation our house has always been full of people,” Mama Zoya once told me. “My father always said, ‘No one ever stole your wealth with his stomach.’ ”

When Mama Zoya got to the curtain that served as the door to our bedroom, she would turn to me and say, “Write about the people.” When I was back in the United States, virtually every time I called, which was close to once a week, she would ask, “Have you written?”

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