Everything is as light as it could be for me. I fully realized that when I was making pork chops for my son who’s now at the hospital — in the kitchen of a communal apartment where my daughter rents a room.
He was brought to the city where my daughter lives completely by chance, and that was a huge stroke of luck. And the hospital is just a 30-minute walk from where she lives. They could’ve taken him to the opposite end of the country.
His sister brings him food every day. Meals that one can easily eat one-handed, with one’s good hand, no spoon needed. She brought him a towel and a mug. She keeps him entertained with chatter, sitting on the neighboring bed, since he's alone in the ward for now. When I come to visit, I stay at her place — while some parents have to rent a place, look for a hostel or a dormitory.
I brought my work with me, because my workplace is a laptop and an internet connection. But someone else's workplace is out in the field, or an office, or a factory, and they have to take unpaid leave or use their vacation days just to come see their child.
I don’t have a household or small children I can’t leave alone — I locked my apartment, left the cat with a friend, and left. But some people have infants or bedridden relatives… a garden, chickens, goats, cows.
I have friends, colleagues, and people from back home who support me and send money. Some people don’t have anyone like that.
“Tell your friends to stop sending money — I have everything I need”, - my son tells me.
“They’re my friends, and think of it like they’re sending it to me, not you”, - I reply.
My friends say, “It’s just for the first expenses”.
At first, it’s embarrassing, and then you realize — they’re right. Even though he has everything, this quest demands money at every plot twist. And I’m lucky it’s just hundreds of hryvnias, because some people need thousands...
About my daughter and the quest that demands money
I sleep on a comfy bed at my daughter’s place. And she sleeps on the floor.
“It’s better than unfolding the couch. Mom, sleep. I’m really comfortable here”.
My daughter has been used to living alone since she was 14, and now she’s adapting to having her wounded brother and her mom around.
Bachelor lifestyle — that’s her, my daughter, even though people usually say that about men. One spoon, one fork, two bowls, a tiny frying pan… No matter her salary — and she’s a sought-after urban planning engineer — she lives like a minimalist. But this is about the other kid.
...His comrades sent his duffel bag and his “bag for the wounded” to the local Nova Post. The post office employee searches for a while, then finally pulls out a massive cardboard parallelepiped, long and stretched. And hey, I knew geometry better than anyone at college for a reason!
We drag it outside. If you stand it up, it’s taller than me, a woman of average height!
“One and a half fare, it won’t fit in the trunk”, - says the taxi driver.
“We agree”, - says my daughter before he can even close his mouth. She says it fast, because she’s afraid I’ll get stubborn and make her carry that ungodly parallelepiped on foot.
Turns out, the damn parallelepiped does fit in the trunk. But judging by the change the driver gave her — he still charged one and a half fare.
Inside the parallelepiped-box is a huge duffel bag, marked with my son’s call sign. Packed with everything he needs. Everything except a razor, which modern youth now calls the trendy word trimmer! And now we have to buy that damn trimmer!
He sorts the clothes from the duffel with one hand — wash, wash, wash! — and tosses them to his sister. They — my kids, brother and sister — are already managing on their own. And I — the mother — what am I even doing here?
...At my daughter’s place, the washing machine broke. We either need to fix it, or buy an adapter for another outlet, or repair the outlet. My daughter — being an engineer — chooses to buy the adapter. It costs a few hundred hryvnias. We’re perfectly solvent: my daughter and I work, my son is fighting (he’ll get paid), and friends also help by sending money.
With all these little tasks, things feel lighter. Especially since you realize: as long as treatment and his leave continue, he’s not at risk of dying on the front or getting captured. I’ve got his entire leave ahead of me.
About the drunk, “Plus! Plus!” and beer with sunflower seeds
His sense of humor has sharpened, he almost doesn’t speak seriously about anything anymore.
“Text me who your new ward neighbors are”, - I write in the messenger, since he doesn’t want to talk on the phone around others.
“A drunk they operated on yesterday, a dumbass, a thug, and an old guy. The drunk got hammered in the evening and shouted ‘F*** it all! Plus! Plus!’ and longer sentences all night. Apologized in the morning. Says, ‘I only drank a hundred grams...’ Seems like ‘a hundred grams’ is less about the amount and more about the ritual itself”.
“The old guy lies down almost all the time — makes sense, his leg is broken. Oh, someone’s visiting him — drinking beer and eating sunflower seeds right here in our ward. A kid’s screaming in the next room. The vibe here is like the old Victory Park in Stakhanov. Just missing the dogs”.
“Our drunk passed out on a bench at the bus stop. The nurses found him and dragged him in on a wheelchair at 2 a.m. Everyone here is tolerant to drunks and to the fussy. They’re treating us like royalty. They’re fussing over me now more than you and dad ever did when I was a kid :) The nurses, the doctor, the unit’s welfare officer, even ‘Nich’ is texting. What a dumb call sign — ‘Nich’. How do you even decline that?”
“The doctor finally kicked out the drunk for breaking the rules. Addiction is gross anyway”.
He’s grown impatient and firm. The only new bad habit he’s picked up, sort of, is drinking coffee. Any kind, even the kind where tea leaves are mixed with coffee. My grandpa used to drink that, I remember...
“They’re still human beings, those drunks—you could really end up addicted over there”, - I text back.
“Mom, people are dying because of them! At our training base, a junkie was working in the kitchen. That’s disgusting! You come back from a forced march, and someone like that is serving you soup! It’s disgusting! He’s taking a spot that could go to a normal, decent person with a disability!”
“How old was your junkie? Older than you? Where’d he get the money for drugs?”
“You can’t really tell with addicts. He looked older. Where do they get money? Mom, the state provides them with everything except drugs! Or do you think drugs cost what they did in your ’90s? He doesn’t pay utilities, the government gives him clothes and food, and his entire paycheck goes to drugs. It’s vile!”
I have no arguments left.
About the end of leave
The closer it gets to the end of his leave—granted for a wound that’s considered a disability (yes, here comes the terminology again), a leave of 30 days—the heavier it hits.
I’m taking a taxi with him to the bus station.
“Mom, just don’t start your thing again... It’s already kind of a bummer as it is...”
Once again, I can’t wrap my head around it: I’m sending my child off to war. Can’t wrap my head around it, like a puzzle turned the wrong way; like it was back in 2014—the year itself. A skinny kid in glasses (he’ll take them off THERE) with a backpack still labeled “Bag for the wounded” and a huge duffel with his call sign written on it. God, he’s so skinny...
“My build is actually perfect for a stormtrooper”.
And me... Do I even look like a soldier’s mother??? Is this what a soldier’s mother is supposed to look like? It should be some old lade from classic Ukrainian literature...
I walk home. It’s about an hour on foot, the weather’s nice.
At every intersection, there are billboards with photos of fallen soldiers. It feels like only here, in Kropyvnytskyi, do we have so many. You don’t see this in other regional centers. A local government initiative... I wonder—is it good or bad that I see them on every corner and picture my son’s face on each one?
Anna Hamova, for OstroV