Diana, Don’t Go Back Home
While you are escaping the war, you cannot escape the racing thoughts in your head. On June 10, 2024, I woke up at 5:45 AM, covered in cold sweat from a dream about my brother.
In my dream, I was transported to Ukraine and learned that my brother was injured. I had not heard about him being in the military. Strangely, it was the middle of the night; I must have just arrived back in my hometown. I was in a convenience shop in our town. In the shop, it wasn’t the usual middle-aged saleswomen who always made sure to look made up, as they often occupied these roles for most of their lives. There was nothing shameful about working in a store; they took pride in it.
This time, it was a young man, but he was rowdy and drunk. He tried to make it seem like he wasn’t drinking, but he looked like a heroin addict from 2nd Avenue in New York. It was only the two of us, divided by overpacked aisles, and while I was worried about being harassed, I had to get something for my brother, and that was more important than a mere chance of being raped. I looked around the chocolate section. In Ukraine, that’s how we express love and appreciation, by giving good chocolates.
The difference between good and bad chocolates is the packaging. The fancy ones come in a beautiful rectangular box, the kind you give to your teacher at the beginning of each school year, and the bad ones are individually wrapped like Hershey’s kisses. You pick beautifully boxed chocolate candies, with nuts if you want to go the extra mile, to ease the pain and suffering of being a teacher. A mere attempt to solve society’s skewed priorities of paying more for building houses than to educate the children living in them. If you truly wanted to impress someone, you would opt for imported European chocolate. Growing up, KitKat, Snickers, and Bounty were something you saved up your pocket money for. I went for a large pack of Ferrero Rochers.
The next thing I knew, I was outside in the street surrounded by my childhood friends, my sister, and my teacher. One amazing thing about small towns in Ukraine is the close-knit community people develop, where seeing your middle school teacher at a funeral is completely normal. So, the same teacher who scolded me for doodling during class or smoking cigarettes in the school garden came to support our family.
I opened the white envelope in my hand, donations collected for my brother’s recovery, and there were only a few dollars. I reached into my purse and put two hundred dollars into the envelope – I did not want my brother to feel unsupported. I wanted him to know we all cared for him deeply and that he would be taken care of. That is something I learned as an older sister: my siblings are, in a peculiar way, an extension of me. I do not know if I will ever have children myself, as it seems like you are being punished for having kids as a woman trying to build a career. I would never wish for anything more than my brothers and sisters. While we grew up in poverty and continuous struggle, I would never trade them for a more comfortable life.
Following the encounter on the street, I was transported to my parents' room. It is a bare room, with light bleak pink walls, the color of hospital walls. My dad painted all of the rooms in the house the same color to save on paint, as having four children, no matter how well-behaved they were, required constant repainting.
Unlike American children, I never had a say in decorating my room. My parents' room has a big bed donated to us by wealthier members of the family, and a big cabinet, something we call a servaant (Cервант). The meaning and purpose of the cabinet is to store all of the most prized possessions including, but not limited to, nice sets of plates, glasses, cards, gifts you’ve been given but left unopened, and photographs. If Ukraine had the Danish Hygge concept, servaant would be an integral part of home decor.
The room also had a small desk and an old PC in the corner. The source of entertainment for my dad and the source of annoyance for my mom. My dad, while playing World of Tanks, rolling around in a tank and shooting at other tanks, was his favorite game. After a long day of physical labor, my dad would escape from his exhaustion and four children and wife into a computer game where none of those things existed.
There was my brother on the bed. The first thing I noticed was the bald spot on top of his head and the thinning hairline around his forehead. My father used to say that the mischief of his children caused his hair loss, ignoring his chain smoking and the fact that he only drank coffee, never water, except in soup.
I thought to myself my brother must have been through a lot in the military.
His left hand was amputated high to the shoulder. He was putting a light brown fleece sweater on to conceal his injury. I gave him the chocolates, and I was holding two keychains as a small gift for him to choose from. Two years prior, I evacuated my brother to Germany’s port city, Hamburg, when he was 17 years old, and I was not sure how he ended up in the military. We made eye contact, remaining silent. I found myself at a loss for words.
What does one say when your own sibling is missing a hand after being forcibly conscripted into the military?
He said something about being sent to Ukraine while traveling in Poland.
He said, “Diana, don’t go back home.”
Ironically, we were home.
