Alexei

2: December 6, 1912

I fell ill three days after my birthday. It was fierce battle I was fighting. One that I one day would not win. I believed that God would protect me, but I did not believe my own ability of survival. Grigori Rasputin came to visit on the morning of the fifth day. The first thing I noticed about this peasant man from Pokrovskoye, who claimed to be a faith healer, was his jagged, nasty beard. He was very well groomed, but I could not take my eyes off his beard.
  As Rasputin performed healing "spells" on me, I fell asleep. A deep one. One that seemed as though would never end. There were no dreams. Only the darkness of the borderline of life and death.
  So I hear, I received my last sacrament after my groin started to swell. I was still asleep, but hearing about it almost put me in the moment. The grave moment where everyone, even me, thought that I was about to die. And that Russia, my great country, would not have a successor.
  We were transported to my father's hunting retreat in Białoweza Forest. We stayed there but then moved again to Spała. It was a dark time for me and my family. No one had faith. Prayers were muttered. It was as if I had already died. My mother's lady-in-waiting, Anna Vyuroba, was contacted to bring Rasputin to Spała because Rasputin was no longer available. On October 9, my family obtained a telegram sent by Rasputin saying: "The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much."
  But there was no hope. My world had crumbled, and perhaps, so had the fate of the great Tsarist Russia.
  On the morning of October 10, I woke up.
  My fever dropped.
  My hematoma vanished.
  I was alive.
  I didn't believe in miracles. Not until that day. The day when I saw the world for what it was. A place that wouldn't give up on me.
  I don't believe it was Rasputin who saved me, unlike my mother. I believe it was God granting me my wish for just another year of survival.