“You should be proud of me.” These words are stuck in the head of a woman who has lost her only son. He had everything: a prestigious profession, a good job, an apartment, a car. But he chose the path of a defender of the country. It’s hard to watch. It was even harder to record the conversation. Tears in the eyes. Breathing that is about to stop.
Mother’s pain is the sharpest. Nothing can sooth it. Psychologists say that, on average, grieving lasts a year. A person has to live one fall, winter, spring, summer without the person they lost. And, accordingly, live through all the holidays and birthdays without them. Maybe it will be so. The pain in the mother’s heart will throb with single signals, and the life that has suddenly turned upside down will be filled with new experiences.
Do we think about what it means to “Give your life for Ukraine”? What kind of person do you have to be to consciously take such a risk? And how is patriotism measured in general? Having met her deceased son’s comrades-in-arms, she is convinced that no one loves their Motherland as much as our fighters do. She says there is nowhere such unity as in the Ukrainian army. She also wants everyone in our country to treat each other with the same love and respect.
Valeria Melnyk
12.07. 2022
Video is prepared within the project “Countering Disinformation in Southern and Eastern Ukraine” funded by the European Union