I wrote the following story on May 23, 2023. We were preparing to move from Romania back to Odesa Ukraine.
The walls are white and barren. It doesn’t seem like we have lived here for over a year. We have done nothing to make the space our own except for a couple of Lego cars and a Lego White House on one of the built-in bland black shelves. The pickle jar overflowing with wine corks tells its own story.Those are just the corks that we started saving. The other three bottles of wine a night we never bothered to save.
We always knew deep down that this place would be a placeholder for us. A temporary home while we waited for some kind of turn in the war. The day we moved in, it was like coming home from a vacation. No boxes were being delivered or waiting for us to unpack years of life tucked away in cardboard; this was not our home. I carried up three suitcases and my backpack from the car. All of our belongings.
When I read the news of Russian troops massing on the border of Belarus, I knew an invasion was imminent. I called her and told her to leave Ukraine. She brushed aside my concerns much like many of the prominent politicians and newscasters did. Alleging it was just a show of force or an exercise and that Russia had done this in the past. Ignoring the fact that Russia had also invaded and destroyed three other countries while Putin was at the wheel. I told her to pack, take her son, and head to the border.
Days after the invasion, I left for Poland; she was safely at the border, waiting to cross. She waited for over forty hours with thousands of people in line. Some abandoned their cars and walked through the frigid winter weather to escape the oncoming Russian hordes. The world was unprepared for the millions of women and children seeking refuge. The citizens of the countries bordering Ukraine sprang into action. I say again, the citizens. The government sat on their hands. The citizens moved in mass to greet the people fleeing Ukraine. They set up warming tents and donated food, water, and clothes. It was one of the most incredible things I had ever witnessed in my life. Volunteers even set up dog parks and donated pet food for the people that were escaping with their furry friends. Yes, these “Nazis” were also trying to save their pets from the Russians.
We have had an amazing time in Romania. Yet, blended into that time is the uncertainty of the future of our lives and livelihood. She left a family business that her parents had built after the Soviet Union collapsed. She left behind her brother, father, her city, and her life. She would stay up late reading about Russia’s atrocities against her people. One night she cried into my arms after seeing the pictures of Ukrainian children with their parent’s information written in black permanent marker on their fragile young backs.
We made lifelong friends, attended weddings, barbecues, dinners, and camping trips. Trying to fill a void of belonging and togetherness. Her mind would drift home. Everyone had advice for us on how to start a business or what we could do. To them, they felt that Romania was our new home and that the home in Ukraine was lost. My wife didn’t want to move from her home. She was forced out. Forced out by a country that has long sought to erase Ukraine and absorb it as Russia. So much so that the phrase “Little Russia” was coined to cover up the ongoing genocide.
We have one month left in Romania. We will pack up what we have accumulated over the last year, and we will head east. We will head home.
When I tell people we are moving back to Ukraine, I get a mix of answers depending on who I’m talking to about the move.
“Is it safe?”
“Why.”
“Why don’t you stay- or move to X country?”
The list is long, and some people are pro-Russian. Mostly the people from the U.S. that are right-leaning. Who feel personally slighted that the U.S. has invested billions in a proxy war. They don’t see the human value of the Ukrainian people. They are the ones that had their freedom bought and paid for three-hundred years ago. They have suckled from the big fat government tit for years, and claim freedom is their right to own guns. They have never had to step up and defend their “freedom.”
Odesa is relatively safe. We have to worry about ballistic missiles and drone strikes. Hopefully, Ukraine will continue to push the Russians out, and the taste of this war will sour in the mouths of the Russians, and they will take back their sons and focus on rebuilding the mess of the country they reside in today.
We will leave beautiful and kind Romania. It will always be a home for us but not our home. Someone has to go back to Ukraine. We have to rebuild and raise children there. Ukraine is not lost. Ukraine is not Little Russia. Ukraine is Ukraine.
As shared on Medium:
