March 2001 would  probably stay as the happiest time for my family, and specially for my mom. We all got together in Kiev for my wedding, hopefully looking forward into the future. Barely keeping the tears of joy at the wedding ceremony (2.3Mb), she makes a toast for newly weds and dances till 4am . Next day she entertains us, new family and relatives, by playing her favourite music on piano:    (the song she used to play in 1967 with her institute's band - bosa-nova "Desafinado" by Jobim),    (one of her favourites from my songs - jive "She doesn't want it").

Spring-Summer 2001:   She enjoys the company of her new daughter Alexandra. who is still in Kiev waiting for Canadian visas, as they go together to jazz-club Dynamo, play piano together, chat for hours. She is also working on  her musical present for us to take to Canada -  she makes piano recordings of her favourites of my songs, which you can now listen on-line:  (First Day of Love),  (Серденько мое / My Sweatheart), (Tear in Palm - recorded May 2001),  (I remember the last day of my life),   (Thing To Know) 

At the same time, she is fully engaged with her job. With 36 years of work in the Institute for Automatization in Construction, first as a mathematician and a programmer, and then as a Trade-union and Benefits Chief Officer - the position  to which she is reelected twice due to her interpersonal skills - she becomes the most popular and valuable employee of the Institute. With her work involving a lot of walking , she starts feeling some minor back pain. 

Being very optimistic and energetic, as she always has been, she continues to work as normal. She makes blood tests  in July, then in August, and they don't  show much anomaly, she does, as her  doctors suggested,  physiotherapy and massage. The pain, however, is  not decreasing and in September 2002, it becomes unbearable. And that's when, after another blood test  she is diagnosed with a shocking result - Multiple Myeloma of 3rd degree (cancer of blood).

Why? Why she? - Maybe, because after the Chernobyl's explosion on 26 April 1986, having sent her children (and helping her colleagues, as a trade union leader, to sent their children) away, she stayed all May and summer of that year in Kiev (120 km from Chernobyl)... Maybe, because she was the Distinguished Blood Donor (having donated more that 25 liters of her blood) . Or maybe, because her mom died of breast cancer at age of 59. I was 5-year old then and still remember how she cried lying on our couch... 

October 2001: the tragic news almost coincides with another news - we are expecting a so-wanted child, her grandchild. We didn't know what the child's gender is, but if it's girl, we've decided to name her after her grandmother, which however was not disclosed to anybody. What a great news would it be to cheer my mom., if only she would be able to receive it. And she will. She will stand all treatments and surgeries, which are probably all of what are possible and known at the present day in treatment of MM, showing all of us outstanding examples of perseverance, courage and great spirit.

November 2001: After spending weeks in several local clinics, where her situation aggravated only (with Kiev administration spending dozens of millions of dollars on monuments in the center of the city, the conditions in most Kiev hospitals area are terrifying) and as a young (younger than sixty) patient, my mother is granted the treatment in Kiev  Oncological Center. This center, more known as Chernobyl Clinic was founded by the European Union for  Chernobyl  invalids and  is now one of the best oncological clinics of the world, equipment-wise and personnel-wise (no other department in the world has as  many cases to deal with as they have had since 1986),  with all treatments being practically free for Ukrainians.   By  December my mother receives several strong and long  chemotherapies. They reduce pain, but  don't improve  much the blood. She is scheduled for marrow transplant surgery.

January 2002: We came to Kiev with Alexandra and the baby inside. Spending many hours with my mom, we sang many songs together. Despite the disease and being very weak, she still has a good voice and singing keeps her spirits up (especially when we do it  together with my dad as we did thousands times in my childhood). This is when we've made a few last recording of our family quartet: (a spontaneous and improvised performing of "Арго"/Argo" - a song from a Georgian movie)

March  18, 2002: she undertakes her first marrow transplant surgery.  At 3:30am May 21, 2002 she becomes the first person outside of our house  to hear the news of the arrival of her grand-daughter Mila "born 30 minutes ago" (it was a home birth). In June,  remission of the disease is observed. After 9 months in a bed (her 4th spine bone was severely damaged by the disease), she learns to walk with a corset and  she is back on the feet and walks outside.  In September 2002: relapse of the disease. October: another chemotherapy. Did not help. And then another, which did help and  which was sufficient to start preparations  the second, very difficult, marrow transplant surgery, which happened 5 December 2002.  While improving the blood tests, the last treatment  resulted in severely loss of the appetite. 

February 2003, I come  to Kiev for one month to help my dad and to be with my mom. My presence helps my mom to partially restore the appetite so that she can eat without i/v,  but even more important for her is apparently  the news that we are coming to Kiev this June with her granddaughter Mila. As I get back to Canada, her condition becomes quite steady, she starts to walk again. 

June 16, 2003. Grandma Mila meets granddaughter Mila. First pictures taken . How happy is she! and how hopeful again is everybody! The last photos with all of us altogether are taken on 26 June 2003 . The day before that, on June 24, 2003, we noticed the first signs of deterioration of her health. Since then  the negative gradient of worsening of her condition On Friday July 4 she was checked out from the Chernobyl Clinic. But even on that day, the doctors take again the blood test. Sincere thank you to the doctors and the donors.

It was the intoxication from Hepatitis B, caught probably from one of the blood infusions, which her immune system destroyed by chemotherapy  was not able to fight.

Spending the last nights with her in the clinic, when she could talk and asked for things all the time, and all you had to do is to constantly be with her, feed her, etc and talk to her so that she doesn't get worried and feel that you, your son, are with her, brought to my sleepless mind a very strong deja-vu which probably nobody would be able to feel  unless experiencing the same him/herself. - It was as caring after my precious tiny helpless daughter in her first weeks of life and being with her and helping her from the very first minutes of her life. Exactly like that.  С точностью до наоборот. (Only reflected to a negative half of the space system). 

Dedications to my mom

"Our Memories" - a  rhapsody for piano composed by my dad as a dedication to his wife in December, 2002. With his wife ill, going to visit her almost everyday, the clinic being one hour away from  home by public transport, he had very little time for leisure. But even more he just found it very difficult for him to watch TV to do any other entertainment. All he could do was playing piano. Listen:

In Ph.D. dissertation of 2000: 
"To this unique source of harmony called the Gorodnichy family" - pdf

 In Candidate of Science (PhD) dissertation of 1997:  
"Отцу, матери и брату посвящается" - see it in pdf
(without the help of my parents, who did all the editorial work, this dissertation, presently cited in my scientific papers, would never be possible)

The photographs of my mother are used 
in description and testing of  face recognition techniques I develop:  see poster and paper

www.gorodnichy.net: "In appreciation of my dad's and my mom's values"