At dawn on February 24, my son called from Azovstal, "Mom, it's war. Pack your things, I'm going to the military commissariat"
Having gone through the hell of siege, bombing and filtration, Ms. Tetiana believes that after the victory she will return to her native Ukrainian Mariupol.
"On March 5, the sky was incredibly gray and heavy. It was eerie. I came out of the cellar. I don't know how I made myself do it, because I'm usually so timid. I looked at that gloomy sky and said, "Lord, take us away from here. Otherwise we will die here. We are cold, we are running out of food. Save us, God. And everything around us was exploding incessantly, the ground was shaking. And there was no end to this horror..."
Already more than a year, Ms. Tetiana has been thinking back to those times and cannot stop the pain. She is 63 years old. She has lived in Mariupol for 40 years. She and her husband have devoted their entire lives to serving others. They are both faithful Christians, engaged in charity work, took care of people with disabilities at the church, and helped the homeless. They gave birth to and raised five children. They taught their children mercy, how to share and repay a kindness a hundredfold. The eldest son is a doctor by profession, a creative soul, a poet. He was ordained a priest. The middle son founded and runs a family-type orphanage. One daughter works with children with special needs, the other is seriously involved in science. And the youngest is his mother's consolation and the biggest worry of her heart. 21-year-old Danylo or Danyk... He is defending Ukraine on the battlefield today.
"On February 24, we woke up to close explosions," Ms. Tetiana recalls, "Danyk was working at Azovstal, he was working the night shift. At home, there were only my husband and I and 31-year-old Danyil, an orphan, a person with a disability. He couldn't walk or take care of himself, so we took him under our care, and he has been living with us for the last year. My son called me at dawn, "Mom, it's war. Pack my things, I'm going to the military commissariat." It was a shock for me. My son had never served in the army, was not liable for military service. But he made this decision and at 11 a.m. his father took him there... Danyk joined the territorial defense."
Their home is a kilometer and a half from Azovstal. Something was constantly flying overhead and exploding right next to them. The windows and doors flew out at once, although the house was holding up. At first, we went down to the cellar, but quickly became exhausted from carrying Danyil, who was motionless. The three of us stayed in a cramped, damp potato pit for ten days. Without communication, without understanding: what to do next? The only thing Mrs. Tetiana knew for sure was that she would not leave the city as long as her son remained here. A mother's heart told her, "Danyk is at Azovstal.
The woman knew about war not from stories or television. The war knocked on their door back in 2014. Ihor, the eldest son, was working in a hospital at the time. He went to the front as a volunteer. At first, he served as a medic in Shchastia for six months. He served in the ATO for three years. He remembers how his mother tried to stop him at the beginning, "Son, how could you? Think about it. We are believers." And he said, "Mom, someone from our family has to go there. We are all safe here, but young boys are dying over there. When they bring us their bodies... and I put them in the coffin, I don't know if I'm sending the mother her son, whether it's really his remains."
He was so gentle as a child. A mama's boy: he followed me everywhere. People used to make fun of him, "Ihor, what will you do without your mom when you grow up and join the army?" And he said, "I'm going to the army with my mom!" "And I just asked him then, in 2014, how will you go to the army without your mom?"
Sometimes it seems that there are no more tears left. But the source of pain is bottomless. The woman sighs heavily. She wipes her eyes.
"But, you know, I had faith that the Lord would save me," she adds after a moment. "Three years of waiting was very hard. When my son returned, I thought it was over. But then February 24, 2022 came..."
...We are talking to Ms. Tetiana in Zhytomyr. Here, in the house of the benefactors who hospitably shared their home, she lives today with her eight-year-old granddaughter Liza. It is February outside. It is getting dark. The tea has long since gone cold. I listen to the story, and the events of the past come to life, as in a horrific newsreel. Here they are, under constant explosions, coming out of their dank cellar. She prayed, and God gave her strength. He sent a volunteer to help them move to a church by the sea.
There, in the basement of the church, they take care of frail people with disabilities. On March 16, a shell hits the church, and they spend the whole night washing off the blood and bandaging the wounded. In my mind's eye I see cars without windows and doors. They use the surviving vehicles to send their wards out of Mariupol, including Danyil. They stay behind. After all, their son is somewhere nearby... They see the neighboring house, from the roof of which Russians are firing at them, they see tanks standing right above their house, they see death. They decide to leave the city only in April, after they receive a message that their son is alive, that he miraculously escaped from the encirclement and is fighting in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
And then there was the road from hell. Long kilometers on foot. Those who could not move on their own were carried in wheelchairs. But there were kind people who stopped their cars and gave us a ride. And then there was the filtration in Starobeshevo, which took several days to complete, and meanwhile men with their hands tied were taken out of the basement of the house..." The Russian military said, "We have your data in our computer, we will check everything. And I knew that if they found out that our son served in the ATO, this stop would be our last. But God took pity on us, did not forget about us... After two days, they must have gotten tired and just gave up on us. They said we were old and weak, so go away. They gave us papers that we had been filtered. They asked, "Are you going on to Russia? No, we were only going to Ukraine. We wanted to go home."
Her days now revolve around one axis: waiting for news from the frontline. Sending warm socks and food to her son and his comrades at the front line, supporting them with money. Checking her granddaughter's homework. Preparing dinner. Praying. Asking God for peace for Ukraine.
Liza hugs her grandmother. She shows us her drawings. The girl loves to draw and adores the cat accompanying her everywhere. "This is the cat of our son's friends. He is also a "refugee" from Mariupol, Danyk asked us to take him in," Mrs. Tetiana smiles, "and I promised my son that the cat would live with us until the end of the war, when we return home. To our Ukrainian Mariupol. And I know we will return."
Ms. Tetiana's family has been receiving monthly financial support as part of the Ukrainian-Polish project "Family to Family" since October last year. Caritas-Spes Ukraine implements this project in cooperation with and thanks to the support of Caritas Polska, and it is aimed at supporting Ukrainian families in financial need and those affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
