"Winter" has come to Olga

"I won a draw for the first time. Right on December 31. But it was only today that I found out about my winning. This story started long ago, about six years ago.
Once in Saint-Petersburg I took part in a project of recording the memories of people who survived the war, concentration camps and siege. That ORT project named “I’m building a bridge from the past” with tens of published memoirs won several awards and became an important one for me. One of my respondents, a hundred years old optimistic woman, taught me to believe that tomorrow’s going to be better than today. I do just the opposite, by the way, believing that tomorrow will surely be worse, and that’s how you get all the fun today.
Later I investigated my family archives reading letters, signing photos, and found the tomb of my great-grandfather Wolf. When I met my half cousin online just several months ago, he managed to visit that place with his sons in between lockdowns.
When I moved to Israel, I resided for a year and a half at the house of a lovely elder lady, a good friend of my family. It was not easy at times, and I got support from texts of Sasha Galitsky on (mutually) correct and safe ways of communication with elder people. I missed all my grandparents, I adored listening to the tales of my neighbors, I recorded dialogs in the public transport, but I got fired from my very first job in Israel – Asylum receptionist – in three weeks.
Several days ago I was reading just another post of Galitsky on Alzheimer and noticed a link to the Online Museum of Elder People’s Art and the offer to adopt a picture of someone who has passed away. Undoubtedly, the Past just offered me a hand again. It was about two AM, I was dressing a fish salad and filled the form automatically.
The reply came on January 1: “Congratulations, you are the winner, come and take your Winter”. Winter? What’s that? How does it look like? Who is the artist, Amos Nir, who lived for 90 years? How will we get along? What if I feel sad about the picture? Or what, if it will be naive or ugly? What will I feel toward some amateur art with my old passion for the Quattrocento? Excuse me all this drama. I was driving to get my first ever original picture, like to the nursery house, with just a vague understanding of the purpose of it all, but ready to fall in love with anything there would be.
When Tanya took the picture out for me, I was frightened. It was huge, black and white, mournful. I put it on the backseat. At home, as the draw rules require, I needed to accommodate it somewhere and take pictures. It all came clear just as I was putting it in properly. Everything I have at home is either white or black, rarely gray. So, Winter fit just right. If you think it depicts a spooky abandoned house, while everybody escaped into the woods and died, you understand nothing about art at all. It’s a Christmas party, they had decorated a fir tree in the woods, a neighbor dressed as Santa and ran there to grab their presents, all out of the warm house, too agitated to close the door or window. In a moment they will all come back, with decorated boxes, eager shouts and forest smells, to continue the celebration!".