Sabina's compounding grief

Sabina was having a really hard time when I was in Ukraine for the week of Christmas.   Her husband, Vitya is on the front line near Bakhmut, where the fighting is terrible, and many members of his unit have already been killed.  She had to go through this hard time, watching Anya and Lena return to Ukraine and be reunited and beamingly happy with Bogdon and Vitalik.  Normally, she would be happy for them, but this week it was just a reminder of how long it has been since she saw Vitya and the uncertainty that she ever would again.  

I don’t remember how many times I caught a glimpse of Sabina with tears in her eyes.  I don’t think that it helped that this was a vacation week, because it just meant that Sabina had more time to sit around, think and miss her husband.  

The last night I was in Kyiv, I found Sabina alone in the living room at Safe Haven.  I gently asked her how she was doing.  “My mom just died.”  And before I could process what she had just said and express my condolences, she said that her family in Russia is trying to get Sabina to send money to Russia to pay for her mother’s burial. And if she could manage it, they want her to travel to Russia to attend the funeral.  

This whole story would be complicated even if Russia wasn’t carrying out a senseless, criminal kinetic war, as well as a ruthless propaganda war against Ukrainians.  There was the issue that at this moment Sabina didn’t want to send a single penny to the country that was actively destroying hers.  Doing this, in this moment would feel like committing treason to her.  

Sabina was born in Russia.  Her mom moved to Ukraine, left Sabina in an orphanage, and moved back to Russia.  When Sabina was in high school she spent almost an entire year in the hospital with issues related to her stomach.  During that time, no one came to visit.  Not her mom, nor any other member of the family, even though some of them live in Ukraine.  As a result of all of that history, Sabina doesn’t count her mother as her mom.  

This is not the first time, that some of her relatives have tried to get Sabina to help them financially.  Because of her legal status as an orphan, the government had given Sabina an apartment just a few years before.  Sabina is renting this apartment out since the area it is doesn’t have work opportunities.  Sabina is currently earning about $25 per month from renting out that apartment.  In spite of this, some family members have been pressuring her to let a cousin stay in the apartment for free.  This cousin has a family with a good size house.  Why should she give up her meager earnings for a cousin who has support from his family.  Again, this family had never been a family to her.  

Under all the reasons, I heard a frustration.  Sabina’s mother was supposed to be a mom.  Sabina shouldn’t be put in a situation where she was refusing to help pay for her own mother’s funeral.  She should be in a position where she was completely justified in making that refusal.  She never should have been made a legal orphan while her mother was alive and well.  On top of all of that, the fact that she was wrestling with all of these other issues made it harder to just sit and mourn what Sabina had lost, both at the passing of her mother and throughout her life.