Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

I know that sometimes the things we carry become too much for us. We are burned down, but somehow we have to pick ourselves up and keep going

....and when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I’ll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face.

Tania,” he whispers, “promise me you won’t forget me when I die.” “You won’t die, soldier,” she says. “You won’t die. Live! Live on, breathe on, claw onto life, and do not let go. Promise me you will live for me, and I promise you, when you’re done, I will be waiting for you.” She is sobbing. “Whenever you’re done, Alexander, I will be here, waiting for you.

Not bombs nor my broken heart can take away from me walking barefoot with you in jasmine June through the Field of Mars.

We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…” Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.

Tatiana...you and I had only one moment..." said Alexander. "A single moment in time, in your time and mine...one instant, when another life could have still been possible." He kissed her lips. "Do you know what I'm talking about?" When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street. "I know that moment," whispered Tatiana.