The Old Man s Words

The Old Man's Words
by Dmitry Podshivalov

Once, on one of those gray, bitterly cold days when the sky seems too tired to hold on to the sun and the world has lost its color, I sat on a bench in an empty autumn park. The wind flung handfuls of sharp-edged leaves into my face. My phone had been silent for two weeks, and all I could see ahead was uncertainty.
I stared at the bare branches and thought that my own life had come to resemble this November garden: just as empty, just as still, waiting for something frightening to happen. It felt like a dead end.
Then, quite suddenly, I noticed an old man. He was making his way slowly down the path, leaning on a cane with a carved handle. He wore no scarf, despite the cold, and a faint smile played on his face, as though he knew a secret. When he reached my bench, he stopped and looked straight at me with remarkably clear blue eyes.
“Cold today,” he said, more as an observation than an attempt to start a conversation. “But you know, son, after a winter like this, spring always comes in all its glory.”
I gave a dry little laugh.
“Easy to talk about spring when you’ve lived so many years.”
The old man chuckled softly and sat down beside me, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Age has nothing to do with it. I’m talking about the laws of life. Look around you. The trees seem dead. They’ve lost everything—their leaves, their beauty, their protection from the wind. You’d think their time was up. But they aren’t dead. They’re simply resting. Deep inside, where no one can see, they’re gathering their strength, storing up what they need to burst into new buds in the spring, stronger than before. The strongest trees aren’t the ones raised in sheltered conditions. They’re the ones that have survived the bitterest cold.”
He turned to face me.
“You’re in winter now, son. Your own long winter. It’s frightening, cold, damp, and lonely. You think it will always be this way. But darkness gathers only before the dawn. The darkest hour comes just before the sky begins to lighten. What you think is the end is really just a page turning. The pain you feel isn’t punishment. It’s growth. Your muscles ache after a good workout, too. It means you’re getting stronger.”
The old man rose to his feet and brushed off his knees.
“Don’t be afraid of falling. Be afraid of giving up on getting back up. Every step you take forward, however small—even when everything inside you says, ‘I can’t’ or ‘What’s the point?’—is a victory over this winter. Just breathe. And believe. Spring will come. It’s never late.”
With that, he continued down the path, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Yet I no longer felt lonely. There was silence—a calm, ringing silence filled with expectation.
I lifted my head. For the first time in a long while, I noticed how deep and blue the sky looked between the black branches. I caught the scent of wet earth and decaying leaves—a raw, living smell of things fading away to prepare the ground for new life.
I stood up from the bench. The cold no longer seemed so penetrating. Deep inside me, beneath layers of fear and exhaustion, a tiny but steady warmth had begun to stir. Like the very sap the old man had spoken of.
Everything really would be all right. Not because my problems would simply disappear on their own, but because now I knew for certain: every winter comes to an end. You just have to wait for your own sunshine.