Home of mercy and decent old age
"The smell of French perfume and a silk handkerchief"
Even from the corridor I feel the chypre notes of amber and sandalwood, the smell coming from Mrs. Halyna’s room. She is 96, but a woman will be a woman, no matter how old she is. On the walls of her room there is a gallery of family pictures painted by her husband. On the bedside table there is a small home altar with a statuette of the Virgin Mary and a cross, a porcelain flower box and a bottle of perfume left at the bottom. On the table there are family photos in frames and two cups from sets, as if their owner is always waiting for guests. The room has a pleasant aroma of the same amber. Mrs. Halyna is distracted from the TV, with a travel program on.
"I love it when someone talks to me," says Halyna, "I usually turn on this program and travel with them (smiles). My husband was a military man, so we moved around the world all his life. He went through the whole war from the first day (meaning World War II, ed.), and after the war he was assigned and we traveled with him from the Far East to Estonia. These are landscapes painted in the Urals, and this is Estonia, we lived there for many years, and this is Lithuania, the famous Trakai Castle, the residence of the Lithuanian princes. My husband did not study to be an artist. He started painting only at the age of 40. He had never painted before. Once he helped my son with drawing at school and since then he never parted with brushes. His mother painted a little, so he probably inherited this talent from her. Our life is imprinted in these paintings. We used to travel a lot. He always took a sketchbook on vacation and painted from life. We used to have 55 paintings, I took only a few that are especially dear to me - the owner of the room shows her gallery.
Mrs. Halyna is a beautiful woman of venerable age who has lived through a whole era. In the room of the House of Mercy, where she has been living for 6 years, there are only crumbs of her previous life. I ask about the photos on the table, the pleasant aroma in the room, the books on the bedside table and the scenery outside the window. She comes from Odesa, from an intelligent family, her father worked at the telegraph. Mrs. Halyna took out family photos dating back to 1891, depicting three generations of incredibly beautiful people. The whole era is visualized through the prism of one family. "And here", she said, "my photo, taken quite recently, in 1945", she smiled and added, "75 years ago". Mrs. Halyna's husband has already died, now there is no one left in Ukraine from her family.
"Would you like some coffee? I drink coffee several times a day, the nurse allows me. It was our family tradition, although after the war it was impossible to get coffee, so we drank mogdad coffee". The beautiful cups waiting on the table finally have their guests. She somehow fidgeted at the table, refused any help, because my sister Anna, the director of Caritas Oleksandrivka and the head of the House of Mercy, and I were guests for her. It was very important for her to set the table for her visitors herself.
"The cups are clean, I use them all the time, that's why I don't hide them. And this is my family's sugar bowl from home," she puts it on the table next to the family photos, "My husband was also from Odesa. My parents introduced us and we have lived together all our lives. On June 2 will be our wedding anniversary. I haven't worked much. The last years - in the archive of the Philharmonic in the Caucasus. Lots of photos: Fyodor Chaliapin, Rakhmaninoff. I collected materials for a book about the history of the Philharmonic, I never part with them. Everything passes, changes, only memory remains, my dear," she tells me and points to the shelf with books. "I used to have a lot of albums, but now I have only photos of my mother, father, grandmother Ganorka, children and grandchildren. I give a lot of my things as gifts, I like to do it. I want to give you my handkerchief as a souvenir", Mrs. Halyna takes off a silk scarf from her neck and gives it to me. It smells of her perfume with sandalwood and amber.
"I always knew I would be here"
"I always knew that I would be in a nursing home, but I did not know that I would get here so early," says Olena. She is 81 years old and she has been in the House of Mercy for more than 10 years. Her husband died early, and they didn't have any children. No brothers or sisters - no one. She came to the House of Mercy after her house burned down with everything in it. We go out with Mrs. Olena to the yard, she sits in a wheelchair and we go on an hour-long journey through the green alleys.
"What a wonderful world the Lord created. Here we have the Sluch River, the forest, and the territory is so beautiful. When I could walk, I walked around all this. I used to live near Fastiv and worked all my life. I grew strawberries and sold them. And now the grandmother has become lazy," she says to herself, complaining, "my garden at home walks by itself, and so do I," Mrs. Olena adds. She shows the paths along which she is taken to church every Sunday for Mass, as well as the places she loves. She shows a squirrel, a stork and flowers. Olena grew up in the village, nature is her native place. She says that she goes out even when the weather is bad, just for a little bit, because looking at this beauty makes her feel alive.
"She is doing well," her neighbor Yevhenia says about Olena, "after the stroke she could not walk at all, her left arm and leg were paralyzed. But she got up, first with a walker, then with a cane."
"This woman has more strength of spirit than all of us".
Yevhenia came to the House of Mercy also after the fire. She went to the store, forgot to turn off the gas, and when she returned, the house was gone. She is 71 years old and she is from Novohrad-Volynskyi.
"I have a very poor memory, how could I forget to turn off the gas. I'm coming back home, and my neighbors run to meet me shouting "Zhenya, your house is on fire". I came running, and there were already firefighters there. These sisters and girls have become like my family. And the nannies are so attentive! They do our hair and clean", she adds.
She introduces me to her neighbor, Mrs. Bronislava. We speak loudly, because Mrs. Bronislava cannot see and hear well. She is already badridden. I ask her how old she is, and she laughs: "Guess, I'm still very young", she says, "I am 83 years old, I am lying down because I fell at home and hurt my hip. I have no relatives, I had a sister, but she died. I am all alone, all by myself. Neighbors used to look after me, but everyone has a lot of work. I have been here since last autumn. They give me tasty food, dress me, I lie in a clean bed, the priest comes to me, gives me Communion, confesses, and what else is needed?" Mrs. Bronislava says.
"I pray to the Mother of God every day. My rosary is my hands. Although I have been disabled since childhood and have a paralysis of my hand, I still pray on my fingers, unclenching this hand. Ten fingers - a whole gun. I used to go to church in the village of Pokosivka near Novyi Zavod, I know many priests who have even become bishops: Bishop Vitaly Skomarovsky and Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk.
I worked all my life in the state farm with horses, we cultivated berries (strawberries - ed.). Oh, how I loved those horses! I was not afraid of them," she recalls.
Yevhenia's neighbor tells about Bronia with tears, "This is a person of extraordinary strength of spirit, her life was very hard since childhood. But what a great woman she is! She tells me so many interesting stories, every time I learn something new. I have just met Bronislava, she has become a sister to me. I admire her, she is lying down, but how she tries to turn herself to make it easier for the nurse to take care of her. She says when she dies, she doesn't want her neighbors to worry. She survived the famine in 1937, the war. She said that she ate quinoa and potato soup. She lived a hard life. She was left alone, and here we love her as our own, and she has a family for her old age," Yevheniia says.
These three stories are like short novels. Each is heartbreaking and full of hope. The House of Mercy in the village of Oleksandrivka belongs to the Religious Mission Caritas-Spes of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, which has been operating since 1999. This is the first of 4 houses of the Mission. Now 13 elderly people live in the house, including 6 bedridden ones. The story of each is worth a separate article. The residents are cared for by nuns, cooks, carers, a nurse and volunteers.
Caritas-Spes Mission is constantly looking for additional funding for the House of Mercy, it is about UAH 100,000 thousand of additional funding per month.
You can support the activities of the House of Mercy by the following details:
account UA50 311744 00000 26007055815724
MFO 311744
USREOU 25755001
PJSC CB "PRIVATBANK", Zhytomyr
Purpose of payment: Charitable assistance
Tatiana Kalinichenko
