Anastasia Krasilnikova - May 6th

 

 

It's May 6th, 2011. I am 12 years old, sitting in the airport in St. Petersburg, Russia. I am sitting next to my mom and my sister, and we're all shaking because we're about to take the biggest risk of our entire lives. 

 

Before that day, my life was pretty repetitive. It was three days of average normal life and then three days of living hell. My father used to work as a security guard at this factory. And for the full three days, he would work there and eat there and sleep there. And for the next three days, he would come home and sleep there and eat there and mostly drink there. My father was an alcoholic. He abused alcohol and my mom sometimes, but he never touched me in any way. 

 

Whenever he got drunk, that's when the real hell began. When he was drunk, he didn't know the difference between the bathroom sink and the toilet. So, he would pee in the bathroom sink and I had to clean it up. When he was drunk, he would turn on the music super loud at 02:00 AM, I had to wake up and ask him to turn it down. When he was drunk and very angry, he would throw something at a TV or smash his fist through a wall. All I could do was just sit in my room, paralyzed with fear, praying for someone, something, anything really. When he was drunk, he would lay next to my mom at night and he would ask her, "Do you want me to kill you right now? Because I sure can." 

 

It's interesting how children, when they're 12, are scared of monsters under the bed. I wasn't. I had my own personal monster and I was much more scared of him. All that was happening, actually. So, for the full three days, I was just an average kid living a normal life. And for the next three days, I would be terrified, always on the edge of my seat. All that was happening until one day, my mom got this letter that changed our entire lives. I remember her signing the delivery slip, opening up this thick envelope and reading the letter with her hands shaking. The letter said that the process that's been started 10 years ago is about to be over. That process was getting our green cards. 

 

Basically, all members of my family could go and live in America forever. I remember my mom, my sister, who's older, and me deciding that was our only chance to escape. That was a moment of choice and we chose to lie. We lied to my father in many ways, in small ways, in big ways. But I remember every three days that he wouldn't be home, we would take our luggage from our closet, put just a little bit of clothes in there, zip it up and put it back in the closet. Slowly, I started going to my teachers, asking for any final grades, any tests I had to take. My sister quit her job. Big secret. My mom quit hers also. Very, very secretively. 

 

Paranoia ran pretty high [chuckles] at those moments. On May 5th, 2011, my father asked me to close the door after him. He was getting ready for his usual, as he thought, three-day shift. And our door was this huge, metal, heavy door. As I pulled it towards me and it made that loud metal sound and I closed the lock after him. I nearly collapsed on the floor. If all went well, this would be the last time I would see my father. 

 

Exactly one day later, three brave women stepped out of that apartment and closed that same door behind us. We simply left, each holding a bag in our hands. We wrote him a letter saying, "We're in America, we're safe, don't search for us." And so, we're sitting in this airport and we are shaking. And for me, as a 12-year-old, it's not just paranoia of him possibly finding out and coming to the airport. It's also the paranoia of the unknown. I knew that my current situation was hell, but that was my home. That's where I grew up. That's all I've ever known.

 

But we get on the plane, it takes off, we breathe out, we're safe. At least, we're safe. In that moment, my family put everything on the line. We gambled on all of it for a mere chance of happiness. But we won. We're winners. Because now, I'm able to stand in this beautiful city. I am surrounded by the best people. But most importantly, now, eight years later, after I got off the plane, I've got the best stepdad one can ever dream of. From the moment that man entered my life, [sobs] he became my best friend, my protector, my advisor. 

 

I remember us speaking high school, and we literally sat through pages and pages of different high schools, their graduation rates and statistics, locations and he was there. He's the first person I called when I threw up in the Uber. [audience laughter] I had to pay $200 in cleaning fees. [audience laughter] He was laughing a lot. [audience laughter] He said he was glad I was okay, but I hope I realized that I have to pay it out of my own pocket and that he's not paying for it. 

 

But to be quite honest with you, I still have nightmares. It's always the same. I'm in my old house. My father, he's right in front of me. He's drunk, angry, probably throwing something and I just stand there, paralyzed. I try to run away, but I can't move. But the alarm goes off. It's the morning. I climb out of my bed and I stumble into the kitchen. I start making oatmeal. My stepdad taught me how to make oatmeal. He's in the living room getting ready for work. I look at him and I smile. All is good again. Thank you.