I bought a coffin for my daughter: small, white, cozy

I never liked that building. Gloomy.

We lived there together until a certain point.

Me, Oksana, and her daughter Leila. Then Mikhelina was born. On June 4, she would’ve turned four.

We met at a birthday party. I was there with my younger daughter, she was with hers. We started talking. Five years have passed now.

On January 14, I was at my mom’s in a different district. We hadn’t argued with Oksana — it’s just that the apartment on Peremohy was hers, and I didn’t feel great there. We were thinking about moving somewhere together. Didn’t know how to work it out.

We called each other in the morning. I was about to head over to them. As I was walking out, I heard a bang.

Students from school called: “Yevhenii Valeriiovych, are you okay? Something hit your building.”

They said it hit a corner, and that building has two corners. As long as it’s not this corner, I thought. I was hoping they’d gone to the store, but they rarely went out during air raid alerts.

I drove there immediately. I was cutting through courtyards to get closer, because the roads were already blocked. Ducked through courtyards, then ran about 300 meters.

I didn’t understand what I was looking at. A wall of smoke, dust, ruins… I ran up to the third floor. Helped carry a woman down — from the fourth floor, I think. She was wounded. They announced everyone needed to move behind the cordon because of an explosion risk. We stepped back.

The whole city was there. Maybe 1,000 people, maybe 500 to 700. A lot of people came to help. I hadn’t expected our people to be so united. They wouldn’t leave, even though curfew was starting.

Around midnight, the rescuers were shining spotlights, and someone heard a voice. They shout: “Quiet!” and everyone goes silent. They pulled someone out.

I stood there for two days, until Monday. Slept in my car. There were heated tents, tea, food. Even cigarettes.

They said six children had been taken to the hospital on Kosmichna Street. I drove there, checked — mine weren’t there. I went back.

Maybe someone was still alive. There was hope. Though from the way it looked, you could tell — no. The missile had hit their exact floor.

Monday morning, the police called me. They sent a photo of my daughter. I don’t remember anything beyond that. My state was… incomprehensible. Shock, probably.

I went to the morgue at Mechnikov Hospital for the identification.

A line had formed — others in the same situation, families of the dead.

We sat and waited our turn.

My child I recognized immediately. She’s a tiny thing — 11 kilograms. The only one like that in the stairwell. Oksana was harder. She was not very recognizable — she’d been more badly damaged. She had a small tattoo — a Cupid on her shoulder — and scars on her belly. Two C-sections. Leila was identified by her grandfather and uncle. She and her mom had been crushed — they didn’t look much like themselves.

The tears come instantly. And an emptiness inside: what did they die for? What were they guilty of?

They were all buried on the same day. Oksana and the little one were placed in one hearse, Leila in the next.

I bought my daughter’s coffin. Children are buried in white ones; Dnipro didn’t have any. I had to order one from out of the oblast. They drove it through the night to hand it to me at eight in the morning. A small white coffin, a cozy one.

I wanted everything to be beautiful for her. I bought a dress — like a ball gown, white. My sister helped choose.

Lots-Kamenske cemetery, also on Peremohy. Relatives of both hers and mine are buried there. There were very many people.

I’m supported by my children from my first marriage, my sister, my mom, friends. We go to the cemetery. I come, sit, talk, leave. I say hello and ask: “Why you?”

My son’s friend started a fundraiser. I transferred all the money to Oksana’s father.

When a child dies, support is useless.