After I published Inna’s story yesterday, I received a short message from Tatiana. She asked me to keep the names, but not share the name of the city they are both from. She asked me to share her story, about the incredible Iya, a hero of the kind most of us simply cannot imagine (I cannot even begin to comprehend). Below is my translation.
The Titanium Spirit of Ukrainian Mothers
І на оновленій землі Врага не буде, супостата, А буде син, і буде мати, І будуть люде на землі! Taras Shevchenko And on the updated land There’ll be no enemy, no rival, There will be son and will be mother, There will be people on the land! Translated by Anush Beglaryan
“Tanya! Iya went to the front to get revenge for her son and husband!” Those were the words which turned my consciousness upside down. How could such a tiny woman (in terms of body size) do such a thing?
A long time ago, on a New Year’s eve with our friends, I met her. A petite woman with a rare name. We were not close, but we had friends in common, and would greet each other when we ran into each other. I would sometimes ask our common friend about Iya’s life, how she was doing.
I knew that she had two children from her first marriage, and that she met the love of her life, and that she gave birth to a child in her second marriage. Her husband was in the military.
The war changed all of us. Each of us reacts to everything happening around us differently. Some people left, in order to protect their children and loved ones, others insisted on staying in their homes and plodding onwards, believing in our victory. And a third group, not third — first. They are the first, those who volunteered to defend their country, all of us. And each of them has a mother.
Only a mother understands what a child is. You carry the child under your own heart, sleepless nights, you plan his happy future. Our women are capable of feeling everything that is happening right now in our country. Every one of us is ready to become a guardian angel.
My acquaintance saw her husband go to the front, and then her eighteen year-old son. Her husband died defending Azovstal, and her son was taken prisoner. Not losing faith and not falling into self-pity, the woman with a tiny frame but a titanium spirit sent her adult daughter with her youngest child to a safe place, and herself went to the front to take revenge for her son and husband. I don’t know anything yet about what has happened to her there, but I hope to meet Iya after the war and we will celebrate New Year’s like in the old times and celebrate our Victory.
Thank you Tanja. May victory and peace come soon. Slava Ukraini