grandma

    As a kid it was hard growing up with an entire family straight from the Soviet Union.  I could never complain about lines!  Nothing was okay to complain about, whatever I had bad, they had worse.

Me: "Grandma my teacher is mean to me!"
Grandma: "My teacher turned in my best friend to KGB, get over it."

I was afraid of of everything.  My grandma always had a way to make me feel better.  She would say, "Yuri, there is nothing to fear but EVERYTHING."

As a kid I loved swimming.  I would spend morning, noon in the pool.  I would only swim in the shallow end.  My grandma asked why, I explained "there are monsters in the deepend, they scare me."
Grandma says, "Yura no monsters in this country only people who make you get creditcards at young age so you covered in so much debt you cant swim out, then one day when family need burry you they have to sell on black market to pay for funeral."... Needless to say I had no problem swimming in the deep end.