Today is a year from the events that changed my life. August 14, 2014. I am going from the UVC base in Kyiv for two days to perform at a concert "Black Sun" in support of the “Azov” battalion. Dirty, tired, and hungry. Halfway my phone rings. Father Peter, UVC’s chaplain. I hear in the tube: "Sorry for such news, but I have to tell - “Zirvanyj” didn’t return from the battle near Illovaysk ..." After verifying accuracy of the news, I say goodbye, hang up and … And the world collapsed for me. The earth was floating under my feet. Suddenly all my miserable life crumbled. The convoy stopped. I'm going for a smoke. I am squatting on a side of the road, smoking a cigarette. The boys are standing near the cars in silence. “Shprot” is attempting to hug me by the shoulders, saying something awkwardly. What a stupid dream .. Let’s move. Where am I going? What for? For all things worth coming back alive have just disappeared. I am dialing a number and asking to make me a suicide belt. Planning a walk in Donetsk. No tears, no hysteria, just hate, hate, hate toward those assholes that killed my sun, my kitten, my sense of life, my “Zirvanyj” … How so? I have so much to tell him, to do for him, to kiss him, to hug him, to love him. Why the time I could dedicate to him was spent for nothing? The next 2.5 hours on the road I was thinking, hating, cursing, and did not want to believe. And suddenly a call from “Sweetheart”. My heart stopped. Probably the separatists are calling regarding the body, I thought. “Honey, everything is alright with me. I am alive.” He called. The world turned upside down for me again. He survived!!!

I became the happiest woman in the world. But my attitude toward my dearest one in the world changed in the root. No more fights, no more arguments over chores. I only want him to be around. I treasure every moment, every word, his every breath. Since then I feel very happy, because I have him, the love of my life, my husband, “Zirvanyj”. I am thankful to God for returning him to me and for teaching me to appreciate and cherish.

She stood and watched as he throws over his shoulder his worn out tactical backpack, and listened the beat of her heart. The heart that from this minute started counting not the moments of her life but the time of separation. What was in her soul? Her vulnerability to pain, the suppressed, unbearable, forbidden desire to call out his name? I don’t know…

I know what was in his - the unwillingness to turn around and the strong desire to win and live so that one day he could come back. Come back to the one, for which it is worth going through fire and pain, tragedy and destruction, frustration and fatigue, to go through the undeclared and from that, even more brutal war, and survive. She was squeezing in her hand his “dog tag.” Squeezed so hard that it seemed that on her palm will be forever engraved: UVC RS, nickname “Buk”, IV + the Tryzub symbol. The camouflaged car with a red-black flag was dissapearing into the morning mist.