BACKGROUND: The word of the father. In this family, the family archive is cherished with reverence. Its zealous keeper Alevtina Bondareva, a retired teacher, willingly tells about her family tree, shows the letters, photos and documents. Here is a military man on the photo card. Courageous, beautiful face. Alevtina Aleksandrovna became silent and after an instant pause, almost whispered quietly: "And this is my dad," her voice trembled. I ask her to tell about her father. She put her hands on her knees, excitedly began to staighten the apron, as if automatically folding and straightening it. -I have already lived a long life," she said. I know the price of happiness and sadness. I spent my childhood surrounded by tender, caring, my dear mother and grandmother. I can say that my future life was quite successful. I worked at school for thirty years. I loved my husband and was loved. I am happy with my children and grandchildren. I have a lot to thank the fate for. But through my mother's and mine life, fate ploughed a terrible furrow. And it is not covered with either flowers or thistle. The war took away her beloved husband, and my father ... In 1932, my mother graduated from the Borisoglebsk Pedagogical School, worked two years in Buturlinovsky district and returned to her homeland. She was admitted to the Makashevskaya seven-year school as an elementary school teacher. The staff of the school was mostly young. Alexander Grigorievich Zhivotenko, a tall, slender, blue-eyed guy, was a Russian language teacher. He paid attention to a small swarthy girl. The young people were irresistibly attracted to each other. And not only appearance was the reason, but also kinship of souls, subtlety of feelings, human reliability. They got married. A year later, I was born. I want to tell a lot about my father. I know him only from the stories of my mother and relatives, letters from the front and photos. And the words from the song are very close to me: I would give anything to see Dear face alive just once. Many of us, many of us, who by the pictures know their fathers. When I was two years old, which was in 1939, they removed the reservation for army service from rural teachers and medical workers. My father also left to serve. He passed through the Finnish war and was awarded with an order. Continuing to serve, he wrote from Lvov that he would return soon. But the war roared. Father couldn't visit the family and come back for a day. He was very longing. How much sadness, love and tenderness was in his letters to his Sasha and little daughter. One day he sent a portrait of his mother, painted by him with a pencil from a small photo. On the back side of the picture is the word of the song: "You, my love, I know you are awake, And at the crib quietly, You are crying". And in every letter: "I love you, I miss you, I'll be back, take care of my daughter ...". I grew up, and my father and I started our own correspondence. He began to send letters written in large capital letters in my name. And my mother taught me the alphabet, reading these daddy's letters. Faith and love kept him from bullets. He had several months left until the end of the war, when in one of the battles he was seriously wounded in both legs. In September 1944, it was reported that Alexander Petrovich Zhivotenko died in a hospital in Iassi (Romania) and was buried in the garden of the seminary. Together with the funeral notice, we received my father's personal belongings: awards, documents and letters. In children's memory, this day was left black. In front of my eyes blackened with grief my mother ans somehow immediately got older. A friend of my father, Mikhail Stepanovich Gribanov, when he learned about his death wrote from the frontline: "Unbelievable, monstrously unbelievable it seems that he is no longer with us ...". And with this grief in her chest, her mother had to survive with the baby in her arms. More than once she was asked to marry. But the very thought that there might be another man in her life seemed to her to be a black betrayal. An honest and whole person, she kept faithful and holy memory about her husband, to whom she once gave her heart. I often reread letters, look through albums, and tell children and grandchildren about their grandfather and great-grandfather. And they are proud of him. She looked at me and somehow helplessly waved her hands: Only the little ones can't understand: "How do you, grandmother, love him, if you didn't know him at all? "Ah, like that... With my heart!"