“There’s no hope any more,” my endocrinologist said on her way out of the exam room in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise, after I fumbled for words to pass my best wishes for her aging cousin in Mariupol. This Azov Sea port in the region of Donetsk has been under siege since the war began, just/the longest two and a half weeks ago. The city of roughly four hundred thousand was fully surrounded within a couple of days, its people increasingly trapped and targeted, losing heat, water, electricity, communications, and gradually, their spirit. Supplies have dwindled to nothing while ever more of the city’s residents are killed or wounded. Was there a right thing to say or do? (See organizations to support below.)
My doctor’s cousin, in Mariupol for the duration of the blockade, sent his son in Israel “two words” several days prior to my appointment with her, a short text confirming he’s alive. This is some hope.
But that was before the city saw a mass burial on March 9; before the maternity ward at a children’s hospital was attacked; before bombardment every half hour yesterday, constantly today. And before the total number of civilian deaths in Ukraine was reported as nearing one thousand six hundred. The last time father and son had spoken by phone was last Friday, March 4. Besides contact, Mariupol has been cut off from aid or evacuation since March 1, devastating, likely dooming those who remain.
When I checked in with my grandmother’s former caregiver a few ago, Lena* wrote that Zhytomir was “half destroyed.” Shelling badly damaged the water utility, forcing residents to melt snow to quench their thirst. “Many have already died, peaceful citizens and children. The mayor of the city is asking people to keep the lights off so the planes can’t see where to bomb.”
As the situation deteriorated in their hometown since I first wrote about them, Lena’s three sisters have had to split up. One stayed in Zhytomir with her family, refusing to leave; the other two went toward L’viv, close to Ukraine’s border with Poland. The area is currently flooded by people running for their lives like them.
During shelling in her Zhytomir neighborhood on the night of March 1, shrapnel hit the building where one of the women had lived, damaging the roof and knocking out windows. Luckily, she was with everyone else in her elder sister’s basement, their bomb shelter as the invasion closed in on the city. I don’t know of injuries. “About the damaged house,” Lena recounted, “right away, the neighbors, all together, kindly helped to patch the windows and somehow temporarily cover the roof.”
Once they arrived in the western Ukrainian village, local people — “complete strangers,” in Lena’s words — provided her sisters shelter and clothing, the whole community pitching in with food. Such acts of compassion shine the light of life amidst war. In the worst of times, many people do rise to the occasion, freely offering their absolute best. What a diametric contrast to the dire cause for this generosity. Always a skeptic, for now I bite my tongue at the rest of what comes to mind.
Communication between members of Lena’s family and too many others, near and far, was disrupted from the beginning of aggression, each phone contact drowned out by air raid sirens and punctuated by foreboding silence. How easily people can reach their loved ones depends on too many fluctuating factors in the context of complete upheaval. Four days after he left for military action from Zhytomir, the first chance he got, the husband of Lena’s older sister had called. “We’re working,” he reported. “I’m alive and well.” Not having heard otherwise, I sincerely hope that’s still the case.
In another bright spot — тьфу, тьфу, тьфу, knock on wood — Lena was able to get in touch with her sister in Zhytomir yesterday. The connection was terrible, so they resorted to text. It was “noticeably calmer, the planes were flying but not bombing,” Lena relayed. “They were even able to sleep a little.”
* Not her real name.
Look for the helpers.
~Mother of Fred Rogers
SeeknSea 