Day 7 - I’ve Lost People

1. The home I grew up in does not exist anymore. Me and my family technically still own that apartment. Somewhere. Physically, it’s not there anymore.

2. The school I went to, does not exist anymore. A childhood friend worked there recently as a teacher. Sent pictures after the shelling. My brother – who went to the same school and has a dark sense of humor – commented “Well, they fulfilled the childhood dream of blowing up the school”

3. The city I grew up in, is not even in my country anymore. russian invaders occupied Donetsk 8 years ago. Even trying to visit it would have been life threatening all this time.

4. The Ukrainian city I was born does not exist anymore. It’s not even on the map. I guess makes it for a good security question for the online banking :/

5. To top it all – the country I was born does not even exist anymore! Well, this is not such a sad part actually. I was born still in the Soviet Union, Ukrainian part of it. And there’s nothing wrong with erasing that russian dominated dictatorship and setting my Ukraine free.

6. What’s most important, I lost people. 3 days ago, we lost a family member while they were trying to evacuate from Kyiv. But I also lost people who are still alive. I thought I knew them, we have been good friends for over 25 years. I thought they even had brain and internet access. And yet they are pitching to me the “russian peace”, while in full support of their family members being drafted to the army to go bomb Mariupol! A friend from Irpen’ near Kyiv was calling her dad living in Russia, telling him the horror story of their evacuation and that their house is destroyed – and she got a response “Don’t go anywhere honey, stay there for 3 days, we’ll free you up!”. Seriously?!

So no, not a single fuzzy feeling to the place and (un)people that took away so much from someone who is not even supposed to be impacted much by this war. And so much more from others on the Ukrainian soil.