Diary of a Real-Life Veterinarian: The Faces, and the Ghosts. Coming Back From Ukraine.

The panes keep flipping. One after another, almost every single one a snapshot of a face that haunts me like the ghost of a departed too soon relation. Those faces. The innocence, despair, fear and immense sea of need contained within their little skinny souls.

Momma dog and Stewie.. both equally adorable.

I see them as this: tiny souls. Lost and dependent. Expecting nothing, the same as they have known their whole lives, and yet optimistic and hopeful. Some of the dogs took days to decompress when they arrived. Days of huddling, hiding and running through the fates that lay ahead quietly in their heads. I feel as I know them all. Some hidden primitive calling from an ancestry that binds us even if we have just met. These pets cause me, I want to believe, others too, to melt. They were my singular focus. My only task and the compromise that made all of the rest of the obvious, and not-so-obvious hardships worthwhile.

Ukraine, as I will remember it, is an old soul, built on organic gatherings. Time honored traditions that don’t give way to modern amenities. People live off their land. The earth is black with rich fertile soil. So dense it cements to your shoes, holds you fast to its grip. Women, the majority of which are old, bent and bowed to the earth they pay gratitude to. They are subdued, embedded, artifacts of this place. Long layered worn long skirts. Cardigan-coated, scoliosis spines topped with home-sewn clothes. Weighty, permanent, and unwaivered inside a war they will persevere through. Their fortitude is the constant of this country. They may have to live under another mans rule, lose their flag to a neighboring bully, but, they will never lose their traditions, their ages old agrarian practices, and they will never surrender their soil which blossoms forth food, flowers, and the stories of all of the women before them. The elderly who are still here are poor. Dirt poor. They tidy up their tiny quaint unembellished homes each morning and each evening. Small handless brooms held at knee level, sweep, sweep, sweep. The dirt is pushed away for a few hours only to crawl back in with the breeze. Nothing stays clean here. Nothing shines. Nothing is made, brought, or found here that wasn’t made before 1970.

Bunkers and Checkpoints.

The fruit trees dominate. Pruned to a twisted spine, with blunted arms, the trees for fruit are forced to reach for the sun, but never allowed to outstretch their arms in glory. And yet they flower in explosions of white and pink. The afternoon breezes blowing kisses of snowflake petals. It is this beautiful as the country gets forced to live less. Less time to read, to relax, less food, almost no available gas. Less television, internet and access to the world outside of this war living its daily life and working for a brighter future of better. Colleges are struggling to stay open. Malls, and shopping centers are trying to keep entertainment and distraction of teenage goods and meet ups, open. A go-cart center still opens at 10 am, lines up the carts, and awaits the boredom of children to convince their parents to spend cash they need to bank.

Deworming puppies

The banks are open when days seem bright. They shutter when the air alarms take most of the day. They just shake their heads with “no” when you inquire as to why banking hours now permit half-days and full days of closing. There are long lines at the bank ATM machines. Most, like the gas stations are merely closed. A sign indicating an absence of indefinite length.

For me, there was a cloud that found me once I crossed into the border. It stays the whole time you are there. The rest of the group have been inside long enough to have forgotten it. It remains, like Linus, looming above, grey/black turbulent and daunting, but like an old chronic ailment, it gets ignored by the events of the day, the tripping stones and obstacles that take up every small task. Pushed back into the subconscious where it makes its den and waits for a crack in the armor to invade and metastasize.

One of the homes I stayed at.
She lives alone with her cats and dogs and loves her garden.

My friend had organized this trip. We had been talking about how much the wars existence, and our easy lives had burdened us. When people asked why I was considering this trip I answered honestly that I felt ‘compelled’ to go. Driven to add my voice, my anger and my actions of defiance to the pleas of a country that was once part of a dynasty and the parents wanted their kids back, even if they desired to keep their independence. Wouldn’t I want someone from halfway around the world to do the same for me? Shouldn’t every other human being with means be joining the crusade? If only to protect their children’s independence somewhere down the road? Maybe the news of a country being invaded, forced to die or surrender, be so inconceivable and unacceptable that all nations and all people stand up and just say “NO!”? I will not permit it?

Arrival Cluj Romania airport.
One personal bag and 4 large luggage suitcases of medications and preventatives.

This protest, internal proclamation has the same fervor and intensity as my deep conviction to protect the animals stuck, and injured in the cross fire. Not all who fled took their pets. Not all who could leave with them did. Somewhere left with friends, or in shelters, no doubt with the hope that the conflict would be won in days, perhaps weeks, and they could return to the life that they had led in Ukriane. The shelters are burgeoning with animals. So overcrowded that they are stacked on top of each other. The weak cower in the back, hiding and huddled into tiny shivers of fur. No face, no identity. Just hoping to get a piece of the meal at its next delivery. Competition for all basic needs is reduced to brutal will and dominate strength. Very few dogs are neutered which promulgates and perpetuates the aggression, the dominance. A few females are spayed, many are not, therefore when one, or all, go into heat the hysteria climbs even higher. The idea of adding pregnancies, puppies and even more mouths to feed, souls to assuage, and frailty to protect is the chasm of the fault line that allowed the contents of my heart to fracture. There is no attempt to slow the tide here, just a pessimistic acceptance that it will most definitively worsen before there is hope for it to improve.

Sergei sleeps at our feet during dinner.
Likely the luckiest puppy in Ukraine.

Where many countries across the globe are making humanitarian efforts to offer passage, placement and assistance to Ukrainian refugees, most are making precautionary measures to deny animals sanctuary within. The rules, the paperwork and permits, and fear of the flood have caused the numbers within the countries few shelters to explode. To care for these animals has caused internal personnel exhaustion, desperation and corruption. The opportunities to divert dog food, supplies and medications has caused most shelters to seek food from all available options. Feeding has been leftovers, some fresh, most not. It is survival at every level and consequentially the weakest will be the last to be fed or defended.

I called her Sunshine, the others called her Piglet,,

It brings me back to those faces. The ones who have been treated like cattle. Moved by force and packs or herds. Collected in the last minutes of an eminent invasion and sent to be housed in another place that is fraught with fear and lacking in safety from fights, food access of personal preferences or liberties. These are the ones I am drawn to. The ones so overlooked and so ignored they have surrendered. The ones who make you melt with them as they learn what affection feels like and let go of the armor that they resorted to. These are the faces I filled my time, my head and my heart with. These are the faces that are burning inside of me asking to be refueled again with. These are the faces that would compel me back into a war zone with worsening conditions and very likely a death sentence to surrender, willingly or not to. Can a face call you to your own demise? It is calling me to consider it, and consuming me to submit to it. Again.