Home for Christmas…

I am coming home for Christmas. That is a very exciting prospect!
I have not seen my family since before the pandemic, and I know, at times, that they have been very worried about me.

Christmas is a time of the year when family comes to the fore; so it will be brilliant to share it with them after being away for so long.

That being said, it will never leave my mind that there are people freezing to death, and being blown to bits in Ukraine.

It can’t. It doesn’t.

I will tell you a bit about how I am feeling, and take this as an opportunity to have a glance back over my shoulder, and look at the year that sits behind me.

Home sweet home

THE first thing to say is that I am not feeling guilty about coming home. Some may think that I would be.

But I am not.

If anything, to have my time with my family – to see my grandmother at the table for Christmas dinner – will send me back to Ukraine with a smile on my face.

I know what my purpose is – Christmas will be a time to recharge.

It is not a period of abandonment or a desertion. I do not feel that at
all.

Always in my mind

HOWEVER, the people of Ukraine will never drift far from my
thoughts.

I know that before experiencing
it.

I suppose the fact that I can get back with such ease serves to highlight just how close to home this war is taking place.

Having made the journey and having seen just how little is required to get from peaceful Ireland to war-torn Ukraine, you realise that one is only around the corner from the other.

Knowing this – feeling this – means that even as we sit at the Christmas table, the chances are some part of my mind will still be in Ukraine.

Christmas for the Ukrainians

IN contrast with the Christmas that I will be having – one of warmth, abundance, food, drink, family – the Ukrainians will be having one defined in part by darkness; both literal and figurative.

There will be blackouts, empty shelves, cold houses and struggle – a struggle on a level that most of us have never had to endure.

An advanced people

IN normal times, the Ukrainians are advanced people.

Their cities are fast, sophisticated, high-tech, and redolent of places like Berlin and Geneva.

Everything usually works perfectly.

They pride themselves on their efficient and effective civic infrastructure.

So, for them to have no power, and to be forced by ‘Mother Russia’s’ hand to sit in their apartments, cold and hungry, is a hugely embittering reality.

Russia thinks that what they are doing is sapping morale. Draining the Ukrainians’ will. But this could not be further from the truth.

They are stirring resentment, and setting ablaze a fire of bitterness. These emotions do not have the same effect on people as the draining of morale.

The opposite is true.

These emotions do not paralyse; they make people determined, zealous, resolute. They make them ruthless in both their outlook and action.

When the thaw comes

THIS winter is not going to do any favours for the Russians.

When the sun comes up in spring, and the ice begins to thaw, the Russians will wake to a whole population that have been
simmering in resentment and hatred all winter, and are now ready to boil over.

Ukraine will be possessed by a dangerous energy in spring. I will be back to see it.

A well-needed recharge

THIS Christmas will be the biggest break that I have had since my first attempt to come to Ukraine in March – the one which fell through when I got taken out by Covid-19 on the border, and had to make my way back through Germany and Switzerland.

I, then, tried again in May, and was successful. I got out here and joined up with the EOD team.

It is funny looking back over the year.

Every day feels so long, but from where I stand now, it seems to have flown by so fast. Minutes are like hours – but so are days.

There are a million things that could be said about this year. I could try to colour, charactarise, define and dissect it for the next month… And I still would not have got halfway through.

Anyway, I’ll be home soon. I’ll hug and laugh and eat and smile, and probably cry. Then, I’ll say goodbye.

I’lll be back in Ukraine long before the thaw comes.

For now, that is the way it is.