A Blog of Flashbacks
Sveta in Ukraine
September 2024
This story has three parts—the beginnings of Kyiv Rus; my life-long friend, Tony Antolini, a conductor; and one of my newer friends, Sveta. The first two are brief because the main point is about my friend, Sveta.
Kyiv Rus became a country in 1088, shortly after the Russian Orthodox Church began. Kyiv Rus was far more advanced than any of the western European countries of the time, it had a Code of Laws that riveled even those of today.
The Orthodox church began in Kyiv in 1088 when Prince Vladimir forced the pagan citizens of Kyiv to Christian baptism in the Dnipro River. The first monastery, the first lavra in all Russian Orthodoxy, had its beginnings in 1051. A lavra is a high-ranking all-male monastery.
My good friend, Tony (Anthony Antolini) whom I’ve known since second grade, majored in music and Russian at Bowdoin. He found Rachmaninoff’s manuscript for his Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in, of all places, a monastery in Scranton, PA. Performed only once in 1910, Rachmaninoff had conducted it St. Petersburg. Tony reintroduced it to the rest of the world. (For more information on Tony, see https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/aantolin/index.html)
By chance, I was in San Francisco in 1986 for a local reunion of Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in New York City. Tony and I reconnected. I commented that my sister and I had always wanted to go to the USSR/Russia. Tony said he was conducting this tour there for the 1,000th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox Church. Why didn’t we tag along? Without even asking my sister, I said yes.
Hannah and I had grown up with a Ukrainian painted child’s table with two chairs. Was that what interested us in Ukraine and Russia? No matter. We were hooked on a life-changing trip for both of us. Her city, Modesto, was sister city to the Ukrainian city, Khmelnitsky. Hannah ended up returning to Ukraine to teach on two different occasions. She had two (or was it three?) Ukrainian people come to live with her as exchange students or teachers for a year. She and I went on a trip to Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, and England in 2007.
Enter Sveta, one of the exchange people who lived with her. Enter my meeting her at Hannah’s home. Enter us visiting Sveta and her family in Kyiv. Enter us visiting the family Hannah had lived with in western Ukraine. Sveta stays in touch, now with me and one of Hannah’s daughters. Enter the Russian invasion of Ukraine 24 February 2022.
I write this post for Sveta and my other Ukrainian friends. I write this post for all Ukrainian citizens. I write this post because my husband deeply moved me when he said if he were younger, he would go to Ukraine to assist medically. He spent 50 years in the medical field as an operating room technician and a registered nurse. Even though his last deployment was hard on me (I didn’t know him during his two to Vietnam), I said “And you would go with my blessing.” I’ve never used that phrase for anything before. He’s now retired and not young. He did not volunteer to go, but he watches the Ukrainian news daily. I help him pronounce the Ukrainian names.
Sveta was a successful professional before the invasion. I don’t know what she does now, nor will I ask. Nor do I know where she is in her country or how safe she, her family, and friends are. I am warmed when I hear from her. That means she is alive.
A while ago she sent this writing, the reason why I write this blog and use her poem with her permission.
Coming out…
when you’ve lived with trauma for most of your life, you become accustomed to the pain and that it creates rules, influences choices, dictates behaviors. Under her pídlaštovuêsh pobut, everything is evaluated through her prism. she becomes Master of your life. And such life is already normal and in your way full.
but the trauma is constantly reminding itself, demanding more attention, more restrictions, more pain, and as she continues to indulge in her whims, it only gets worse.
and there comes a moment when it is impossible to live like this anymore and something needs to be changed. You begin the path of search, questions, discouragement fear, despair.
the hardest thing for me was to believe that life is possible without pain. That I can take back the trauma of supremacy and take control of it and my life.
the hardest thing is to dare to change, knowing that the movement towards the dream, will come through a much stronger but temporary pain.
the most valuable thing is to make a step, taming the fear, stepping into the unknown. To trust and believe.
the most important thing is to move forward through the pain, understanding that this pain is healing from old trauma, from old habits, from old limitations.
the hardest part is already behind. Now in small painful steps towards the desired life without pain. and to the little dream—to wear heels again.
Thank you for your hearts and support
As I retyped Sveta’s words, I thought of people in armed conflicts in the world—Sudan, Gaza, Israel, Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, Yemen, Syria. Nine different parts of the world—Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East, Asia.
I am reminded of Rodney King’s statement, his plea: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids?” The part that keeps ringing in my brain is “can we all get along?”
That is an oversimplification of the world’s issues and people’s conflicts, but I have taken it to heart. Why do we need to fight? Every war ends and the people and countries seem to work it out across the years. But why kill people and have such destruction of property? That sounds simplistic, but weren’t we at war with England at two points? Weren’t we at war with the French? With ourselves? With Spain? With Germany? With Japan? With Korea? With Vietnam? With Iraq? I fail to see the sense in attacking a country, in killing its people and then years later becomes an ally with them. No one has ever given me a satisfactory explanation for this twist of events. Why not? Because there is none.
Now I hold Sveta, her family, friends, and her fellow Ukrainians in my heart.
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