Day 262. Singing in a bomb shelter.
Birthday post.
Hey everyone.
It was my birthday the other day and I’ve been reflecting a lot on what this past year was like.
Weeks before the full scale invasion
18 February 2022, message to a friend who is in the US National Guard
"I thought today that I'm so tired of this but then I remembered that there's 18yo boys and girls sitting in the trenches in the cold.
And they just have to wait and don't know what's going to happen and get zero credit for that from the world. ... At least talking about their sacrifices is the bare minimum we can do for them so they know we love them and they're not alone.
And compared to them we are not tired."
23 January 2021, conversation with a friend,
“Just spoke to my dad again. ... He said our region is going to be trapped from every side that's why they're not preparing [to evacuate] - they think it's going to be pointless. I'm at the office trying not to cry in front of the team."
When on 24 Feb the russians started the full scale invasion, dad refused to leave.
I previously wrote about what it was like having to say goodbye to them that night (see here and here). To put it mildly, it was a horrible experience.
A year on, dad is doing incredible work every day helping our Army and I couldn't be more proud of him. We recently bought another vehicle to donate to Ukraine’s defenders. It’s the 7th one we’ll donate to the Army.
Khmelnytskyi
250-something days later, I’m in Khmelnytskyi with my friends and their baby.
The other day I wrote about trying to let myself breathe and live. At 4:25AM, the air raid siren went off.
We checked the phones to confirm it wasn't a nuclear strike and went back to sleep. A bit later there was another siren. We did the same thing again.
In the afternoon, we went for a walk with my friends and their baby when the air raid siren went off. It was pretty loud.
Being in Ukraine means no matter how much you want to breathe and live, your sleep - and the rest of your life - are constantly interrupted.
But the resilience we witnessed in the bomb shelter was one of the most touching things I've seen in my life.
Bomb Shelter
Apart from our walk, the siren this afternoon also interrupted a music class at the local school.
The teachers, however, seemed completely unfazed, lamenting the fact that the students were not disciplined enough and weren't all ready for the class - that now just carried on in the bomb shelter as if it was a totally normal thing to happen.
I can guess what was actually going through the teachers' minds but they didn't show that to the children and so the kids looked relaxed too. It hurts thinking what kind of childhood memories these kids are going to have.
Out of all the things I've ever documented about this horrific genocidal war against Ukraine, this is by far my favourite footage. It moved me to tears witnessing them singing.
This is a nation with an unbreakable spirit - from a completely invincible country.
Lessons relearned
I've learned many things over the last year days but the most important ones I confirmed for myself rather than learned:
Material possessions don't matter. All I cared about saving from my home in Ukraine were the family photos that needed to be scanned. It was very important to preserve that. Everything else I could let go of.
Money only matters to the extent to which it helps cover basic needs / every day problems and donating to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, that's all.
The real meaningful things in life are hard to do and take courage. No one is going to say thank you for them - the opposite will happen.
Those things have to be done regardless no matter what people think of me in the moment.
The most important aspect of my life is the relationships with the people I care about. There is nothing else that really has much value.
Loss of integrity and of genuine impact are the only things to fear.
Photo: 4yo Alona at some point in the 90s, making a political statement in Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast:
✨ Don't let the world tell you how to hold your inflatable dinosaur✨
P.S. After my Twitter account got suspended, I started a Telegram channel “✨щоденник ясочки✨”. You can subscribe to it here.
P.P.S. All my other links can be found in my LinkTree, including my Buy Me A Coffee page which you can use if you’d like to support my work (always remember to support the Ukrainian Army first before anything else).
You’re my favorite person I met this past year. I can’t wait to visit Ukraine! Happy birthday!