[artplumber]

Perhaps this is an explanation....

When they called Nastia’s name, announced that she was from the United States of America and put her on the highest stand, the family couldn’t hold it together. A gold necklace hung around her neck and this daughter of the final generation of communist Moscow stood straight for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”


“I thought of my father,” she said. “I hope he feels as proud as I did.”


It was too much to contemplate, really. She couldn’t stop crying. She tried to collect herself and sing. Behind her, off to the side, Valeri wasn’t any better.


“I tried to hide from crying,” he said. “This is our dream.”


This was an immigrant’s moment, a family that found that very freedom, that very future they thought possible in the United States.