I – Oxana have been going to Aims community college in 2003 – 2005 years, studying my prerequisites for nursing program. During those years I remember talking to my mom in Russia on the phone about her singing Christian group Dawn. She talked a lot about 3 new boys who recently joined the group: Arsenii, Daniil and Alexander (Sasha). I remember her say about how much the atmosphere in the group has changed with these guys, how the group became more complete. She would always mention about Sasha’s fun spirit, which would lighten up the group. After I finished my second year at Aims in may 2005, the Dawn group with my mom were coming to America for a singing tour around U.S. I was extremely tired that spring because of all the tests I had to take, but I was still going to join and travel with the group as I haven’t seen my mom and my sister (who were also singing in the group) for a long time. I was helping as a translator, choreographer and sometimes as a singer.

     I remember that day came when I was going to meet the group at Washington airport. Remember getting about a hundred hugs and kisses from my mom, sister and friends that I haven’t seen for a long time. It was awesome. We loaded the entire luggage into the big RV (in which we traveled all summer) and headed for the hotel. I was so tired that evening but I definitely remember everybody laughing when Sasha would make jokes.

He seemed so boyish, naive and full of life energy. His spirit would always help our group to lighten up and take things easy. I especially enjoyed his fun spirit. The thing is that I have had a rough year 2004/05, I struggled through some problems with a lot of spiritual hurt, which left my soul completely drained. I haven’t laughed the whole year because of that. One important thing is also that I have a unique sense oh humor and not many jokes can make me laugh. I remember traveling in RV, sitting on the couch just watching everybody. I saw how Sasha found somewhere a tool kit with some instruments; he opened it and was pretending like it was Daniel’s (his best friends) toilet kit. He pulled a big dirty-black brush from there and offered Daniel to brush his teeth. Then I laughed for the first time in a year, it made me feel human again, it made me feel alive. From that moment I loved to be around him, as he would always make me laugh.

     We were supposed to dance a part in one of our Russian traditional songs about war – where young couple in love had to be separated and how they met again after the war. I choreographed that dance and I got to hold Sasha’s hands during the dance, as he was a special friend to me. I remember after our performance in Disney World going back to our hotel, Sasha was sitting next to me we were both smiling to each other and were just extremely happy and excited. I can’t even describe my emotions. But I understood then that he is not just a friend to me and that I would want him to be around not just that summer. We were in love, well… we still are, but we were just discovering each other and just falling in love more and more every day. He would always intrigue me. Flying out of the Rv to go swimming he would scream “song 11”. And I was like, "What?", but he was already gone. Then I realized, I took his CD player and listened to song 9 and it would make my heart skip a bit. The song said: “ Your eyes are deeper then the ocean I can drown in them. My whole life will not be enough to understand all of you…”

     He would always capture me with things like that. There was an artificial bouquet of flowers in the RV that Sasha would present me every day on his knees.

     Another time our group went rafting in cold River in Colorado. First of all I flew out of the boat and Sasha caught me. Second, we stopped by the edge of the cliff for anybody who wanted to jump in the water. There was about 8 meters to fly until the water. For those who know me would say how much I’m afraid of heights and speed (I don’t like roller coasters very much – little spinning cups is my kind of a ride. Anyway I don’t even know how it exactly happened but I remember how Sasha counted to three took my hand and said, “jump”. I didn’t really had time to think, he was already in the air and he was holding my hand so I had to jump and I did. It gave me a rush of adrenalin and excitement, we even repeated the jump several times.