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Attention! Translation was done using AI, mistakes are possible
On Saturday, my mom called me for the first time in 10 days. Before that, I felt like a child who’s the last one left at daycare, forgotten by their parents — because many of my acquaintances who live near my mom had started getting news. [When she called, ] honestly, I thought it would’ve been better to get a text.
It was a call as if a person who’s in hell and being tortured right now managed to call upstairs. My mom is a very strong woman who’s been through a hell of a lot in life — I don’t know a stronger woman — and she sobbed through the entire call, saying every other word “I’m scared.” She said — my mom is a teacher, a top-category teacher with a Teacher of the Year title and so on — “I don’t need a damn thing in this life, nothing at all, just to get out of here.” On March 2nd, her last message to me was: “I’m going to live a long time!” In 10 days, that transformed into “I hope we at least see each other one more time.”
After that call, I half-died, because my mom will be 52 in June, and on the phone was a frightened little girl saying: “I’m begging you, please, tell me, tell me that something is being done to save us, I’m begging you.” And you say: “Well, yes, they’re trying, but nothing’s working so far.”
On Saturday evening, she called me again and told me why she’d had such a severe breakdown: she’d gone out to the courtyard to boil potatoes, and when she was coming back, heavy shelling started, and she hadn’t made it back to the apartment yet.
My family lives on the 7th floor and they don’t go down to the basement: they spent 24 hours down there once, but there were drafts and my grandmother started getting chills. She has health problems, her medication is running out, she’s 79 years old, it’s quite hard for her to walk up to the 7th floor, and the basement is impossible to stay in.
On Saturday, I gave her one of the strongest motivations I could: “Mom, I’m more than sure that Dad is gone.” Because I know my mom will do everything she can so I don’t end up alone. She said: “If they don’t hit our building — and they usually hit the 7th and 6th floors — then we’ll do everything to get out of here.”
I’m certain that my father and other grandmother are no longer alive. I tried to get someone to break open the apartment and retrieve them — I even got through to the unit defending the city. Of course, they couldn’t help, and then I saw photos of mass graves and thought: no, let them stay where they are, I don’t want to come back to the city and not know where they are.
I told my mom today: “I don’t believe in God, but I believe in you, and don’t you dare talk about not getting out of there.” I haven’t been able to convince her yet. And that’s quite hard — what I fear most is that she’ll despair so much, that she’ll truly believe it, that she’ll give up the fight, because all that’s left is some potatoes and two packets of porridge.
Honestly, I’m afraid to see her. I’m afraid to see how much she’s aged during this time. Because it’s unfair and she doesn’t deserve it. Nobody in my family deserves it.
Right now, I feel all-encompassing love for everyone around me. A lot of people from my past are writing to me — people I was somehow connected with, who caused me an immense amount of pain — they write saying if I need anything, just ask. And I feel absolutely no pain, no hatred, nothing toward them, because all of that is directed at the people who are making my mom cry.
