Collected pieces from stories, writings, essays and sermons
“Humans have bodies, communities do also. A community is something that extends feelings beyond the individual. It stretches as far as our ability to feel the pain of people… Its unity depends on our ability to feel the pain together …
When you lose a friend, a family member, or someone close to you, you lose a part of yourself. You cannot replace that part.. … More than that: you lose yourself when you lose someone you really love. You wake up in the morning, …brush your teeth, make yourself a coffee-but that is no longer you. Each of these movements is now senseless. Meaning is a direction, a vector of your movement, ….When you lose someone you love, that space of movement and direction are gone.
Community degenerates when you cannot feel your neighbor's pain…. cynicism triumphs over compassion….
Cynicism is when we lack a sense of the irreplaceable. Cynicism is the logic that an empty space that can be filled with anything. Cynicism is indifference.
“Shared values require the capacity for compassion. What makes a community is the experience of suffering and rejoicing together (and the ability to do this).”
Voloduymr Yermolenko, philosopher, journalist, chief editor of UkraineWorld.
And still — this life is worth embracing…
To hear a voice of truth within the world.
To rise above the evil, grief, misfortune,
When there is no way to turn aside.
To learn to thank — our God, our time, each other,
For every step, for all that once was ours.
To welcome all that cannot be rewritten,
And treasure life itself… and truly love it.
For real happiness is simply this:
To be, to breathe, to live.
Poet, Lina Kostenka. Age 90
New York Times, magazine, “War Widows, Valentines Day and Last words become poignant symbols of loss.” By Constant Méheut Daria Mitiuk and Gray Beltran
Melaniya Podolyak, 29, and Andrii Pilshchykov, 30, didn’t even have time to marry.
They met in the spring of 2023 when Ms. Podolyak, a media project manager, interviewed Mr. Pilshchykov, a fighter pilot. Better known by his call sign, Juice, Mr. Pilshchykov was a prominent face of the Ukrainian Air Force. He had helped defend Kyiv at the beginning of the war and visited the United States to lobby for the supply of F-16 jets to Ukraine.
Like many Ukrainian women, Ms. Podolyak was initially hesitant about dating a service member, worried that his combat duties would leave them little time together. But Mr. Pilshchykov’s kindness and thoughtfulness won her over.
For six months, she traveled every weekend to see him where he was stationed. During the week, they talked for hours at night, when he wasn’t flying. “I was sleep-deprived the entire time,” she said with a laugh.
On Aug. 24, 2023, they were driving to Mr. Pilshchykov’s base, two hours west of Kyiv. They talked about his possibly moving to the United States for a program to train pilots on F-16s. They also discussed marriage — that would make it easier for Ms. Podolyak to visit him there.
The next day, Mr. Pilshchykov left for a training mission.
ANDRII, I’m at the base
MELANIYA, I’m going to have coffee with a friend
Mr. Pilshchykov was supposed to return in a couple of hours. When he did not, Ms. Podolyak messaged him.
MELANIYA, Babe, Where are you?
Then came a call from an air force acquaintance, informing her that Mr. Pilshchykov’s plane had collided midair with another jet.
She wouldn’t believe it, and sent him desperate messages.
MELANIYA, I beg you , No, Please not this, I beg you.
Two years ago on Valentine’s Day, Olha Chesnokova told Yevhen Volosyan she loved him. They had met a month earlier on Tinder, bonding over music. Ms. Chesnokova, a 46-year-old psychotherapist, said she had wanted “to wait for the right moment to tell him” — but not too long. Mr. Volosyan had decided to join the army, and soon they would be separated.Two months later, Mr. Volosyan, 37, left for the front. He served as a radio operator, sapper and eventually drone pilot, remotely flying suicide quadcopters into Russian forces. The couple married a few months into Mr. Volosyan’s service, with him briefly returning to Kyiv to say, “I do.” Back at the front, he would stay in touch with his new wife through text messages during the day and video calls at night, when darkness grounded the drones.
On Nov. 24, 2023, Ms. Chesnokova texted him around midday.
OLHA
Babe, are you ok?
YEVHEN
😘 sweet kiss 💋💋💋 I’m fine. But 3 drones were lost
OLHA
Oh, I was worrying. Thanks for writing 😘😘😘
They haven’t hit their targets?
YEVHEN
Yes, there were some communication issues… I completely lost control of one of the drones and watched for about ten seconds as it turned over toward the village and started to fly… then I regained control, managed to steer it back, but it ended up crashing in the field
Ms. Chesnokova, reassured, went on with her day, waiting for sunset to reconnect with Mr. Volosyan. She checked in again around 5 p.m., but he didn’t answer.
Her husband had bought her a ticket to a concert that night of Serhii Zhadan, their favorite Ukrainian artist, and they had agreed that she would call him from the show, so he too could listen. But he didn’t show up online.
Growing worried, Ms. Chesnokova texted him again.
OLHA
Babe, where are you???
Ms. Chesnokova returned home and waited anxiously. Just before midnight, Mr. Volosyan’s commander called to tell her he had died in shelling. Stunned and in tears, she spent the night trying to grasp the loss. Then the next morning she sent him a final message — knowing it would never be read.
OLHA
You made me a happy person, a happy woman. This was meant to last for a long, long time and you are not to blame
FAMILIES I KNOW
A mother and father of two children are outside our Center for youth and families which is paid for and run by our nonprofit: This Child Here. The father is a fitness trainer, and looks it, lean and muscular but not overly so. His wife is thin and sad. “I'm depressed,” she tells me. “My parents and sister live in Russia. I tell them our apartment is gone; the Russians invaded Kharkiv. All around us are buildings broken or leveled by tank fire and missiles.”
The father opens his phone and begins flipping pictures: building after building, empty shells, blackened, all windows gone. The fitness facility where he worked is a mangled heap of aluminum and shattered glass.
“I tell my parents what is happening here in Ukraine,” she continues,” but they do not believe me. They say its is not what's on their TV. ” I see her eyes filling.
I learn that Tamil's husband was released. His ribs are broken, and his knees are broken. He is silent. He does not speak. He sits on the sofa at home. Olya, our Director of Programs, and I met a woman and her 17 year old son at the grocery store. They picked out what they need, we paid for it and crossed the street to the park where I would take their picture. I asked the mother how long they had been in Izmail. Three days, she said. And then she began to talk rapidly and I was not catching all of it because she was also weeping and Olya was holding her. “What happened?” I asked later. “She was forced to beg for money to buy food,” Olya said, “I had to tell her. You are not begging; this is what we do.”
Tanya is a teacher and mother of one son. “I lost a friend,” she says. “She lived in the suburbs. I worked with this girl; she was a Ukrainian language teacher at school. I saw her name on the news in Telegram, and I started crying because I found out that she was gone. A shell hit the house. She was 33 years old. She went to visit her grandmother, and a cluster shell hit the house - she and her grandmother are gone. The girl was young, she did not have children and a husband, she did not have time to create a family. It was a shock for me, when you know a person, when you worked with her, you drank coffee together, you walked, talked. The person was, and now she is gone. Terrifying. It is terrifying when this happens.”
“Where is humanity in people, sympathy and compassion, which should be in people? After all, this is the life of another person, who did nothing to you, and you come to a strange house with your own rules, weapons to kill. Why are you doing it? For power? It will not bring this pleasure.”
-Robert Gamble
What I tell our people, our workers and volunteers in Ukraine:
“I am an American, but I think of you.
I see you meeting mothers and children who have fled the war, at markets in Izmail, then standing with the cashier while they gather what they need and you pay for it.
I see you standing in the food warehouse in Vilkova, surrounded by boxes, bags, and cans of food and supplies and people coming to get what they need.
I see you at our Centers for Children and families in Izmail where teens are playing board games and the guitar.
Little children are drawing and painting.
Psychologists are leading activities.
Parents drink tea and talk.
You wait. Ukraine waits for Russian drones, rockets, and soldiers.
The fear of these is an invasion into the heart.
The lies told by the enemy are a darkness to cover what is true.
You are a light that shines against this darkness.
In this moment of history, What is true?
Your life is true.
All the flowers are gone. Surrounded by those who do not know where to go or where they belong, what can I tell you?
As you work, help, and live, you are where you belong.“
-Robert Gamble
Tatiana Lonskaya, writing from her apartment at night in Kyiv:
“Words coming from my battery-powered radio ... The endless night marathon, transmitted situations from the de-energized regions and cities. I heard that Lviv surgeons of pediatric cardiology successfully completed a super-complicated heart operation in total darkness.
“A cat had finally been found, which had disappeared from an apartment building in Vyshgorod which was cut down by a rocket attack.
“And somewhere, people picked up a pet rabbit - also near that house. And all over Ukraine they passed this news on to someone who, apparently, was looking for him - the bunny in the heating center is waiting for its owners, crunching carrots... I could not hold back the tears.”
“In line at the grocery store, a woman tells me she needs a lamp, but there was none to be found in the store. We are all keeping quiet. Everybody has his own thoughts. The man in the front, who did not participate in this sad conversation, suddenly turns around and puts his lamp box in her basket full of all sorts of household items. 'Take it,' he says. 'You need it much more. I will buy next time.' Kindness suddenly dissolves the protective cork on the heart. And for me, as well as for others in that queue, it is very hard to hold back the tears.”
Nine months into the war, Tatiana Lonskaya wrote to her friend from college years and the years when their children were young. This friend now lives in and believes in Russia.
Tatiana: “Really, what can be done in 9 months? Bear and give birth to a child. Write a book. Watch a television series. Build a house. Open your own business. Sow, grow and harvest. And a lot of other things aimed at development, beauty, life. And you can also send a hundred thousand of your citizens to guaranteed death, so that they exterminate a neighboring country.
In 9 months, a new generation of people was born in our country. We don't have electricity, but we have light. There is no connection, but there is communication, and we are together. .
The soldiers of your country go to death for the sake of death, and the defenders of my country die for the sake of life. And our children, who are now shuddering from the view of the sirens and freezing in the darkness of their homes, they will have a worthy future and the right to live in a free country, unlike yours, whom you are depriving right now ... and have already deprived of a normal future.
You never understood us during this war. You did not understand that fear disappears, but every day help for one’s own and hatred for the enemy grows, and the will to win becomes stronger. And most importantly, you did not understand that it is impossible to intimidate with darkness those who have light burning in their souls...”
A POEM
I want to tell you about the fate of Ukrainian women. Because I am proud of every Ukrainian woman. Every one who lives despite everything.
Some left Ukraine with one suitcase, with children, a cat, documents and photographs, and left behind a home that still dreams at night. They sleep in a foreign country, but create a comfort that smells like home. They smile at new people, and quietly look for their own with their eyes.
But most Ukrainian women stayed.
They wake up to the sirens of alarm, put their hand on their child's head and say: "Everything is fine, sunshine..." They cook borscht in the dark, when there is no light again, and hide their tears in the steam above the saucepan.
Ukrainian women continue to live and wait from the front for their sons, husbands, brothers. They pray for them and sincerely believe that prayer can save a loved one. But they still shudder at every phone call, where they do not know whether to rejoice or fear. Because every day could be the last day when the family was with their husbands.
I want to talk about those who did not wait for their relatives from the front. Who stands by the cold cross and whispers: “I told you to take care of yourself…” Who wears black not because of fashion, but because of memory. And who learns to live with this silence every day.
Every day we are infinitely grateful and proud of those who fight. Who in a bulletproof vest, with a machine gun, with a scythe under their helmet, and with eyes that have all of Ukraine in them. Who is not afraid of death, because they have already seen it too close.
And those who heal, save, sew, bake, collect, donate. Who does not have time to cry, because someone else needs her hands. Who feeds the world when she herself is hungry for love.
I am proud of those who have lost everything: home, job, loved ones, faith and still grow flowers on the window sill. Because life must go on, even when it hurts.
And those who give birth to children in bomb shelters, and sing lullabies to the roar of missiles. Who takes a child in their arms and whispers: “You will live. You must live.”
I am proud of those who laugh. Who joke so as not to go crazy. Who celebrates her birthday with anxiety, and still puts a candle in the cake. Who paints their lips to remind themselves: “I am alive.”
And those who are silent. Who can no longer talk about what they saw. Who simply puts their hand on their heart and looks into the distance.
We are the ones who know how to bury and give birth at the same time. To cry and smile. To be afraid and still go.
To love even when the heart is in ashes.
And when they ask me what keeps Ukraine going, I answer: She.
A Ukrainian woman.
With hands that smell of bread.
With eyes in which God lives.
With a heart that beats instead of thousands.
We will endure. Because we are she.
And she is love.
The one that is stronger than death.
Olya Balaban,
Olja Lucic
