The most popular person in the world has died
Meet Ilya. The most popular person on earth that you probably don't know. Today we buried him. Who knows, maybe after reading this text something will die in you too.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that you do not know Ilya. Just because he didn't have anyone. He did not know his parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, because he spent his entire adult life in a boarding school for disabled children. But there was something in it that concerns each of us.
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1. Of course, he ended up in a boarding school for a reason. Ilyukha had Duchenne amyotrophy. Such a rare and incurable disease that kills all the muscles in turn until it gets to the vital ones - the lungs or the heart. At 14, he weighed like a feather. I could transfer him from the wheelchair to the bed with one hand. For any unsuccessful action, he always gave imperturbable instructions: “Dima, straighten my head, otherwise it will fall off!”
But you don't need to memorize boring diagnoses. Only one thing is important - Ilya knew about his illness. And about dying.
2. To this he said seriously and in an adult way to the snow maiden Lena when he was in the palliative department: “I don’t understand why people are afraid of death? Here I am a happy person - all my desires come true! And it’s not scary to die… Will you bring me tomatoes?”
In general, this is all you need to know about Ilya and about your attitude to your own life - at the same time.
However, I will remind you of something else. Thousands of Permians who took part in the New Year's undertaking #defrost are involved in the fulfillment of Ilya's desires. And a year ago, several guys decided to arrange a birthday surprise for a boy who will never be able to go outside the Perm Territory. And he will spend most of his life within a radius of 300 meters of the boarding house. They invited their friends and friends of friends to send messages of congratulations to Ilya from all over the world.
Japan and Canada, Paris and Budapest, Australia and Sakhalin responded. More than 300 postcards have driven the mail of the abandoned village, where the boarding school is located, crazy. When Ilya saw a huge chest of letters and gifts from all over the world, he asked: “Does this mean that I am the most popular person on Earth?”
3. The most popular person on Earth died on August 19th. Today we drive along the broken roads of Kizel for a dirty green "loaf" that takes him on his last journey. At the local cemetery, several state-owned undertakers, with a fumes, bury Ilya in clay slurry.
4. Wooden cross, broken plastic plate with his name, dates of life, death and dirt. Of the human, there are only Lena's tears and Natasha's forty white roses.
There is only one thing to compare to the death of a child you knew personally. This is such an inadequate, unnatural, unimaginable event that only it can make you sincerely believe for a second that you, too, will surely and inevitably die. This is your death too. Some part of you is dying.
5. From now on you know Ilya. And therefore, perhaps, something in you died along with him.
The only question is whether there is still anything alive in you and me.