A terrible disease - diphtheria... An adult son and a little daughter are seriously ill. How can you withstand the test sent to you and your family without falling into despair and hopelessness? How to learn to notice those who are nearby and who are even worse off than you? The heroes of this book, written with the utmost sincerity, but at the same time colorful, lively and poetic, face many similar problems. This is a book about that inner light of love, not a single spark of which is wasted in vain.

Notebook written by candlelight, at night, in the 1st Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital, in ward number 16, in September-October 1994 years - when Ksyusha was sick with diphtheria. And at the beginning of her illness she was 4 years 9 months old, and when we left this hospital - 4 years 10 and a half months. And we lived in this room our whole lives...