She had come running to America, literally. Sharp, painful pieces of her broken marriage had left bleeding wounds in her heart. Young love had not deepened into a sustainable relationship. She was running from the pain left by an abortion, from the poverty of living on a student stipend and her ex-husband’s engineering salary.

She came running without money and papers, but with lots of dreams—American dreams. One day she will be very rich. She will dress up in designer clothes, buy a business-class ticket, and fly to St. Petersburg. She will invite her university classmates to the most expensive restaurant and pay the bill without hesitation. Moments of glory—they keep us warm during hard times, even if they are only in our imagination.

So she started her American marathon. The procedure is standard: first, you need to achieve legal status. It’s an expensive pleasure. You can do it through a fake marriage, which is a very nerve-racking experience, because your husband might change his mind and leave, taking your money with him.

Your second choice is political asylum. For that, you will need a very good lawyer and an endless amount of patience. There’s no telling how many years and court appearances that will take. Anna worked hard on this second option, collecting examples of antisemitic hate crimes against her in Leningrad.

After just eight years, she won her case and got her green card. At that point, she started inviting her family from Leningrad to America. They all came bearing the same message: “When are you going to get married and give as a child? We are not getting younger. Hurry up. Your biological clock is ticking.”

Anna felt like it wasn’t so much a clock that was ticking as a bomb and that she had to hurry up before the final explosion created a point of no return—when she would lose all her eggs.

She was introduced to Yosia, a scientist who lived with his mother. Anna explained to him her life goals and promised him full financial security from her tax accountant business. Yosia wanted that security, and he was impressed by Anna. She was so unlike most of the post-Soviet women he knew, who had a totally different understanding of the role of a man in a woman’s life—his role was that of a wallet; the man must support the woman financially. So it was safer for Yosia to stay with his mother until he met Anna.

Anna’s story of getting her American papers, her energy, her desire to succeed, her straightforward approach to any subject without wasting time: these were magnetic to Yosia. He agreed to marry Anna in a month. Why wait if a decision is so clear?

Anna got pregnant very quickly, and they made Dany’s acquaintance. Such a lovable boy. They were so enamored of him that nothing was good enough for him. He had best nanny, the best daycare, the best school. Anna saw him as a doctor right away. A Jewish boy has two choices: be a doctor or be a failure.

A doctor must know foreign languages; Dany got Hebrew and Spanish classes.

A doctor must have physical endurance; Dan got serious tennis training.

Anna’s biological clock was still running, and she convinced Yosia to try for a second child. She was 45 when Snejanna was born.

There were different requirements for Snejanna. A girl is the jewel of the family. Snejanna started piano and tennis lessons. Finding the right schools for these children was an adventure: no school was good enough for them, and Anna constantly transferred the kids to pursue better educational opportunities.

I met Anna and Yosia when Dany was close to graduating high school and Anna was trying to choose between orthodontics and anesthesiology

They chose the best college—not too expensive, because dental and medical school are about a hundred thousand a year. Anna was absolutely financially ready. She was planning her retirement. They bought a luxurious piece of land in Santa Monica to build a vacation home. It took a very long time to build that dream house. Every detail required very thorough conceptualization. This was to be the home where Anna would play with her grandchildren and prepare her big family celebrations, all the generations together.

Dany was accepted at a good college, and Anna came to the realization that she didn’t want to spend her golden years with Yosia. He irritated her. She did not want him around. After Dany left for college, she imagined being with him without the kids. It was not appealing.

Her family did not support the divorce. They kept repeating the phrase “Don’t change horses in midstream.” But Anna wanted something else. She started traveling with Snejanna or by herself. It’s not easy to find traveling companions as a single person. Anna joined other couples. She was comfortable without a partner. She dreamed about traveling to Russia with both of her kids after Snejanna finished college and Dany was in medical school.

“Of course, they would travel by business class. Anna always found that traveling in business class was the best part of any trip. First of all, she was called to board the plane first, a status symbol in itself. Second, she would sit in her comfortable big chair, sipping Champagne and relishing the 20 minutes of glory as she watched other passengers scramble with their suitcases to reach their seats towards the end of the plane. ‘Life is good. Good for me,’ she thought during those minutes of glory. In her mind’s eye, she quickly replayed scenes from her past, such as the time when she was hysterically crying at Sheremetyevo Airport on her way from Russia, cleaning floors of expensive houses during her first years in the States, and struggling to find the right English words to explain her documents at the Social Security office. And now, just 15 years later, she was flying business class to a luxurious Brazilian resort or Punta Cana.”

The main reason she left Yosia was her desire not to share anything with him. Anna considered him a “money-sucker.” She supported him financially and felt that this arrangement was fundamentally wrong. It hadn’t seemed wrong before, but life had changed. Now the fact that she had to support Yosia forever was Anna’s main irritant.

That feeling was like a pebble in her shoe. If she could just remove it, she could start walking in the right direction.

Was the divorce a tragedy for Yosia? It’s hard to say. He moved out and continued to be involved in children’s lives. He kept taking Snejanna to all her games. He kept talking to Dany about college life. Anna was very upset when family court expected her to pay alimony to Yosia. She considered this to be fundamentally wrong. Why did she have to be the “breadwinner”? In her mind, this was the man’s role. This is how we were all raised. But times are different now. In all the stories, it’s the man who is the knight in shining armor, the man who is the king. The woman follows him wherever he goes. Our roles have greatly evolved, but deep down, we still long for the old ways.

We met with Anna in a Bavaro Beach  resort. I was just beginning my parenting career. I wanted to know how to plan my children’s future. Anna raised her children so elegantly. She designed their upbringing so well: all the leadership training, volunteer opportunities, and extracurricular activities to create a well-rounded individual with great sporting achievements—a full bouquet to bring to the college admissions officer. I desired the same for my kids, but it didn’t work out. My kids had strong wills and didn’t go along with my vision. I pushed, they resisted. I pushed harder, we fought. I thought, this is the end of the world. They will never succeed and I will be an ashamed parent forever.

But life is not that simple. It is unpredictable. You can make a plan, and voila, you’re presented with a totally different landscape.

Dany graduated from a very good college with a high score on the MCAT. He applied to 16 medical schools and was rejected by every single one. Anna was devastated. Dany spent the next eight years lying on the couch. He didn’t want to do anything. He smoked marijuana and hung out with his friends.

A tragedy? I thought it was. I was puzzled. These are the years for exploration, for falling in love, for forming friendships. It is the time for new experiences, new emotions, new excitement. He was the living dead. He had no aspirations.

Anna had been my leading inspiration for parenting. What happened? She did everything right. She inspired the kids by her example. She supported them in every way possible. She had a strong mother-child bond with her son. Anna really liked his company, and their conversations were deep and meaningful. The whole time he was in college, she kept saying, “How come just when you finally start enjoying your kids, they grow up and leave for college?”

But after he was not accepted into medical school and refused to reapply, I didn’t hear any more about her delight in her children.

Dany was always on my mind. I wondered why he didn’t pursue therapy, although Soviet culture always thought of therapy as something embarrassing. “How come you can’t solve your problems within your family, just by talking in the kitchen like we used to do in the Soviet Union?” Those are the voices in an ex-Soviet head.

By talking more with Anna and observing my own kids, I realized the problem was that Danny could not figure out who he was. He was so busy in his childhood, as all kids are now, and he had so many goals to accomplish. We all are so different. As a child in the Soviet Union, I had a lot of time to wander around after school. My parents did not have a specific agenda for my future, or if they did, it was very general. The Communist party made all our decisions for us.

But for Dany…

He knew very well what was expected of him. He knew the steps he needed to take. Everything was in order. His life plan was a no-brainer. The only thing he didn’t know was whether he wanted to be that person he was programmed to become in order to make everyone around him proud and happy…

Upon his rejection from medical school, he realized the depth of the chasm between two fundamental questions: Who am I inside? and What does my mother expect me to be?

As parents, we fail to see our children as totally separate human beings. They are not our pride and joy. They are not extensions of us. They are a totally different universe, and it doesn’t matter that this universe was in your womb at a certain point. You can envision your child’s best future through your observations and philosophy of life, but his universe has different rules.

Anna needed an emotional outlet. She chose social media, a Russian Facebook page called “In Contact,” which mines your old connections and presents you with totally unpredictable “slides from your past.” You might get a glimpse of your class photo on someone else’s page. You might see your first love all bald and overweight. It could come as a great relief that you escaped such a destiny. Anna found her first husband. She was surprised to see he was in Atlanta. He was married with two girls.

Anna visited his page multiple times, studying pictures of his wife under a microscope.

His wife was “nothing to write home about,” according to Anna’s description.

After about a month of doubts, Anna messaged “Hi!” to her ex-husband. They exchanged messages for a week before they decided to talk on the phone.

Anna couldn’t stop shaking. She was cold, she was hot, she was trembling. She imagined his voice and their conversation through many nights. She had many conversations in her head with him about why he was so wrong at the time she ran away to America. After that, she proceeded to the next stage—she wanted him to know how much she accomplished: money, private schools, luxury cars, a house in an exclusive neighborhood. She had attained it all. He had lost so much. Even now, Anna inserted her financial achievements in the messages. She felt proud of herself. It was a good feeling.

One day her phone rang. There was his voice. It was difficult to speak. Anna felt her heart pounding like a church bell somewhere in her throat. She sensed it was not easy for him either.

The thing about her ex that Anna had never been able to forget was his poetic, romantic outlook on life. He was a dreamer. That was the main reason they had argued. Anna was a go-getter, but he was a spectator of life. Anna loved that about him and hated it at the same time.

Her ex-husband began: “Do you remember our star?”

Anna remembered, but she said, “I don’t have time to look at the stars here. I work.”

Her ex said, “I look at our star every night that there are no clouds.”

Anna’s heart was so loud. Her eyes were wet, and her throat was itching. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. So she just hung up the phone.

It was around that time that Dima appeared in her life. Anna was not able to face her pain 24/7, so she traveled with friends. She was not looking for love, but friends introduced her to Dima as a traveling companion. He was very good looking, a charming gentleman. He had been married twice previously. He had several kids. He had a good bachelor’s life.

Anna’s relatives went on the alert when they saw Dima for the first time. They said, “This one is worse than Yosia. He is after your money.”

Dima was working as a nurse at the time and paying alimony to his ex-wives.

Anna did not want to let Dima into her life, but she needed some relief—she was fighting with Dany, crying over her lost dreams, arguing with Snejanna. He was there, supporting her.

Dima knew how to relieve stress with food. He addressed any difficult situation by cooking. The appealing smells and barbecue juices defused the stressful atmosphere.

The divorce settlement had meant that Anna had to sell her dream house, but Dima insisted on building another house in wine country. They did. Certain Russian dreams were incorporated into this house: a tennis court, a sauna, a deck with a great view.

Dima likes to travel. He never had the money to do it. Anna always wanted to travel with her kids, but Dany had lost interest in life and Janna was in a rebellious stage. Everything Mom did was very wrong. Janna fought with her over anything and everything. She was not a good travel companion anymore.

But going back to American dreams: one of the ideas that gave Anna something to look forward to and made her feel good was inviting her friends from St. Petesrburg somewhere. It was a way of showing off. Anna had a great occasion to do it: her 60th birthday.

She called three of her old friends with a marvelous idea: traveling to Brazil, just like the hero Ostap Bender who wanted to walk in Rio de Janeiro in white pants. Anna offered to pay for the whole trip for all three friends. But the reaction she got from them was shocking. Two of them did not have traveling documents. They had never left Russia. They were busy with their vacation homes and little gardens. It was very important to them to start planting on time, weeding, harvesting their crops, canning for the winter. That was the kind of life Anna had run away from.

Another friend had to babysit her grandkids, and that was her lifetime responsibility with no vacations.

After the Brazil idea did not fly, Anna looked at her situation differently. It was the final piece of the puzzle. She realized all of a sudden that money could buy happiness. Long-term plans rarely work. You have to live in a moment.

She booked a trip to Dubai to drink coffee among the golden leaves. She decided to travel the world with Dima in a most luxurious way, to spend everything she had worked so hard to earn, to not leave anything to kids. They would have to prove themselves.

And what about Dima?

He is very happy with the relationship. Anna invested his savings very well. She is providing his financial stability. He had to struggle with money all his life. “Bringing women into your life is an expensive pleasure—and maybe no pleasure after all. But Anna is wonderful.” He never met someone like her.

Once Anna raised the question: What will happen after they spend all of her money? Will he support her?

Dima expressed his views very clearly in a beautiful way.  He quoted the famous American expression, ‘The past is history, the future is a mystery, but now is a gift, which is why it is called the present”