The Calls Home. NYT Russian Troops cell Phone Calls in Ukraine

It is a cancer within me. I cant un-see it, un-want it, or banish it. I made it mine and so it is. 

Droog Shelter Alexandria Ukraine late April 2022

I suppose it is a cancer of a conscious that won't let rest. Dismiss it as too far away, and not mine to feel parental guidance for. It's another place, other people and even that isn't a clear enough choice to eradicate it. Preserve the self for the necrotic within.

Triggers. Todays was a full two page list of the collected phone calls tapped by Ukraine as Russian soldiers called home. Will America read them? Will they share my disgust and dismay? Can a cancer have a community of witnesses to grieve as one? Isn't humanity supposed to have kicked in by now. Like sometime in the tweens after AD occurred? 

A street dog in Ukraine. A small act of kindness within a country at war.

How are we still so tolerant of such aggression and egregious acts? I'm going to assume that these phone calls are legit, and I am going to say that I, from the little I saw when I was there, believe them. I just cannot feel much more than shame and empathy. Shame that madmen still walk among us and no one will step up and take down that plane before it hits its target and annihilates another thousand innocent civilians, and empathy that two countries children have to fight, die and witness what war turns people into for that same madman's ego.

Where are you going to fall in the course of history that marks our species? What cancer eats at you?

For more on this see Uproxx

For The New York Times article go here.

For more on my trip to Ukraine please see these previous articles;

The best recap I have on my experience is the podcast with Brendan Howard, The Veterinary Business Success Show. 

Recognition, Resolution and Restitution blog

Better Left Undone

Purgatory

Walking Away

The Faces and The Ghosts, Coming Back from Ukraine

The Compound

My personal note,, to those I left behind,, two and four legged,, I think about you everyday. My heart still beats within Ukraine. I will be back.. there is too much left undone.

purgatory

Purgatory is that place between places. The place where bad outweighs otherness. "The place of temporary suffering," as Webster notes. It is the word I used in Ukraine when the group asked me what my thoughts on being there were? I said "purgatory." When I did I got back puzzled faces? I had to define it for them. They were Romanian, Ukrainian, or long time UK military. It wasn't a word any of them used, knew, or could place in the reference I had given. I had used it because it was the best word my mind could find to express my deep concerns for the plight of the animals I saw there. The animals we were all taking care of.  The animals we were all risking our lives for. But now that I am home I think it defined the whole mass of the entire experience.

I was reading the New York Times, (one of my bucket list items from COVID), and in it I saw that there is a new series by Stanley Tucci (something about food? I think? and Italy?). It caught my eye as I have developed a serious crush on him. On the 10 hour plane ride home from Bucharest to Dulles I watched Supernova. It is an intimate love story between Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, who are quite possibly the sexiest over 50 duo to land on the big screen. Their story, their ability to capture their characters, draw you within them, and keep you suspended within hopeful curiosity to a story that can't possibly have a "happily ever after" captivates. Watching that film in the dark, seated in 23D, (middle row, who booked this seat for me??!!), was one of the few escapes from purgatory that trip permitted me. It's a story that pits dying within the despair imbued within trying to live through the saying goodbye. It is two men destined for one another and dealing with the end to their love story on their own terms. I got lost in it. I cried. I cried buckets for them and to purge my purgatory sentence. It was the beginning of my onboard movie marathon. The "jump in and drown yourself in tear-jerkers" to see if you can just purge yourself of the ocean you are drowning within. Next up with 2 hours down and 8 to go, was, Land. Robin Wright putting herself in the middle of the harsh, brutal, winter woods of northern Colorado to be mercilessly faced with dying alone at the unmerciful hand of nature she was excessively ill equipped to face solo. It almost appears as if she has a death wish she dares to claim her. It is a bit of a love story with forgiving herself for the life changing, heartbreaking series of horrible losses she has faced. It is also a bit of a finding yourself as you cannot permit suicide based on a promise she made with her only remaining close relative, her sister. It is about accepting loss as you find out who you are and what you are made of. An intervention based on facing survival alone. My favorite quote, "only a person who has never known hunger would chose to die of starvation." Can one outwill themselves from their own purgatory? Robin did. Why can't the rest of us? Specifically at this moment, why can't I?

   

Hour 6 was yet another chick flick meant to wet your face. I rode that horse into running the tear well dry. I had hoped I could cry it all out before I got home. Last move, "Eat, Pray, Love." 'Cause why not watch a movie about another woman with a lost purpose who dumps, runs, journeys far away and tries to find herself within the muddling, meandering, and muck? (Why didn't I just have a Minions marathon? Laugh that crap out? I always feign to my feelings. Do I always choose cry over laugh? Glutton). 

I was shocked to hear an NPR news interview driving to work about how it is believed crossing a large pool of water cleans all your woos. I swear it was true for me to. Something about crossing the Atlantic, crying through three movies, 6 plus hours of tear-jerkers and I felt better. Here's my entry from my journal as we trekked along at 30,000 feet above the great big blue..

"Maybe it is this wretched ocean? The Atlantic Ocean. (I spent a decade sailing this ocean, it's a legitimate adjective in my hands). Where so many years were spent washing away the time. Suspended life while the world still turns and others live theirs. A parallel existence with the same measure of time, and yet, mine was stuck. Away at sea is stuck. A purgatory of its own, with the exception of being so busy with the work at hand you are too tired, too focused on catching rest while you can, that you cannot see the purgatory for the absence of self. Going to sea is an endless cycle of home, push play and begin to live, to pause-pack a seabag and head offshore. Play-pause-play-pause-repeat. The continuum you cannot fit your life into off season. Big gaps of time passing with the currents and tidal changes of the oceans you cross. And now I cross it again, this time headed home, and as I do I just feel better. washed clean. Absolved. Christened. Baptised. Home calls and the ocean absorbs the tears of loss, abandonment of those faces I cannot suppress, nor bury, nor leave behind. Maybe we are square now? You the ocean, and me the lost soul bobbing back to dry land.

Even if I don't feel like I am wearing that cape of despair the Ukraine trip brought me to the same degree, bending under the weight of the pain, suffering, despair and dismal chance of any of that changing anytime soon, that cloak isn't so weighty any longer. The ocean crossing with the movies of other misplaced/lost souls seeking validation/acceptance and inner forgiveness seemed to bring some resolve. But the perception of purgatory now having a place on the map, a feeling of tangible faces with names and unknown, unsettling possible futures, the sights, the smells, the sounds, that kind of purgatory still lives on Ukraine. Defining it is only a matter of finding your place within its borders. Crying your way home to buy your way back into heaven is the cost of a plane ticket without sleep. 

For more on the trip to the Ukraine to help animals displaced by the Russian invasion please see my previous blogs.

If you would like to help the animals of Ukraine please consider adopting a pet in need in your back yard. Or, donate to these amazing organizations;

Sache Foundation in Romania

Big Dog Ranch Rescue

The faces of Ukraine;

Walking Away. Can Empty Handed Be More Painful Than Heavy Hearted?

Walking away. 

For those of us who choose to travel abroad with the hope of helping, do something meaningful, and, influence an unjust reality, it is deeply painful to have to walk away empty handed. 

I wanted, upon my return home, to feel as if I had done more. Make a more meaningful impact.  I quite honestly want to take them ALL away. Pack up every little face I saw, all of those fearful eyes, bowed defeated heads, and hungry souls, and stuff them into my carry-on luggage and just head west. Cross the landscapes of the safe Nato countries skirting the western borders. Hop that big pond with our own 747 and fly the coop Big-time-America style. Just bust outta Ukraine and be done. Dust on our heels, blue skies ahead. It’s the only real tangible hope for them. The only way I can stop the suffering and save their lives. And I can’t. I don’t accept inability nor denial. It is not in my vocabulary. I didn’t go so far away to just bear witness. I went to change fates. Move trajectories make happy endings from a war. It didn’t happen. I feel defeated and guilty for departing. For leaving them behind. Abandoned and in the same predicament I found them. 

I hadn't traveled this far, 5,000 miles from home, with three days of traveling into Ukraine to see Droog shelters massively overcrowded 500 head count, and just witness the problems there. No, I came to influence them. Surely I couldn't solve many, maybe a tiny pet on a tiny scale, but, I wanted to try. Me and my ever present operative word, TRY. It just doesn't feel like enough right now. Isn't always enough,, but, it is sometimes all you have.

Two Ukrainian rescued dogs out for the evening walk.
I miss them every single day.

For more on the Ukraine trip please see my previous blogs.

The Common Goal

There is no argument that the focus of everyone's immense efforts here is the animals. 

Me, and the compound kitty, Mitsi.. I do LOVE her!

To have such a strong common goal is the only way this many craggy, crazy people, all deprived of sleep, food, warm comfortable beds and all of the amenities associated with running water, AND, being from all corners of the UK, (and me the single American), could coexist together for weeks on end. Life here is complicated, and full of tragedies. People are trying to live normal lives, but, it is obvious that isn't possible here. Because of the poor living conditions, the overarching fear of air raids, bombs, and all of the insecurities war can present it is difficult to lose your way if you don't have a common goal and purpose. It is the glue that keeps us cohesive. If we didn't have this I am sure all of the ragged edges of all of the hardships would crack us. I am also sure that I am the person who fits in the least here. (I think I am proud of that.)

The depth and width of the pet dilemma that is here is oceanic. Mind boggling. This is a country that has very few frivolities. Dogs roam. Cats roam. People trudge in ratty clothes, and everyone sweeps bent over, scoliosis, kyphosis, nose to the dirt, sweep, sweep, sweep. An old country, old people, old stories of war, a country of tales of having been claimed by others, broken away from them, the castaway step-child and the weight of the world with whom you never know who you will saluting to lives here. These people have so much to manage already that the pets, the kind animals, are stepped over and passed by. To be honest there is probably no way to even begin to suggest an end to this mess. As the war drags on the problems deepen, intensify and coalesce. The lesion this began as has become a metastatic cancer of a wound that never received adequate treatment to begin with. How do we try to end the plight of these animals when we started at accepted indifference?

The animals here, at the compound I stay at, were all extracted (the term they all use) from the streets and abandoned shelters after they lost their residencies to the bombs that their homes became Russian targets of. They are all scarred. Some with obvious wounds, others with anxiety based fear so deeply embedded you don't want to know the source, or, excise the reason. You just assess, be kind, exude confident optimism and take small steps one heartbeat at a time. I am a fixer. I am wired to examine, dissect, treat, cure, and claim victory. here, each of these must be set aside. Reduced, and simplified to simply what I can do in the right here, presently, now. I will go mad, abandon the cause if I try to practice medicine like I do in my well controlled, everything accessible home. There are almost no spayed or neutered animals here. I assume with every tragic life threatening ailment that they come to me with they are also passing it forward to the half dozen offspring within them. Great, the problem multiples as I gaze upon it. There is no end. No finishing point.

The dogs here at the compound came from a shelter in Alexandria Ukraine. The shelter before the war used to run with a capacity of about 40 dogs and cats. When the war hit the numbers surged to 400. When the staff could no longer manage the animals and the war they reduced the care to feeding alone. No cleaning and no exercising. When the threat of further invasions and insecurities presented the shelter staff had to make an even more perilous decision. They opened the cage doors so the pets would not be left to starve. The group when in weeks ago to find many of the animals set free from their cages. The scene they came upon was about 150 animals alive the rest in some form of eaten. It is what we would all be faced with if 5 weeks went by without food or water. The weak, gentle and submissive were not who were left to rescue. Most of these dogs are German Shepherds. All are thin, matted, and apprehensive of humans. this is what war looks like. The war of abandoning human kindness and compassion. It is the face of people we should never be reduced to become. It is also why I am here.

I wonder if as the days pass that I won’t grow more indifferent to this place then desiring to stay and help? It is the same dilemma I face at home as a veterinarian. Do I give up as others have to save my fragile soul, or provide it with barricades shrouded in tattered clothes and fight on?

The Announcement.

Two weeks ago I broke it to my husband. I confessed that I wanted to go to the Ukraine, and do something. Something meaningful. Something needed. Something impactful. I had reached the place where I couldn't tolerate myself as an idle observer any longer. I didn’t want to feel helpless, mute, and privileged on the sidelines. Be the American so comfortable that other peoples issues didn’t take space, or deserve time to contemplate. The world is a mess more often because people sit by quietly and let it pass. How can so many people just watch? How do you not put yourself in their shoes and act? It is what oppressed victimizes. It is why oppressing persists. People let it. Specifically other people who know it to be such.

My husband reacted the way anyone who loves someone else would. He resisted. He challenged me to not put myself in the danger that wasn’t mine to defend. He reminded me how dangerous the life of the people over there is. How my life has obligations here, at home. I help the animals at my home. There is legitimacy and purpose here. And yet I still felt like a hypocrite; complaining about the atrocities to humanity because of the actions of a bully who needed to be punished. I was picking sides. I always do. I always root for the underdog. Vote for the newbie, never the incumbent. Where there is power there is too often corruption. Let that power last long enough and the rot of greed, arrogance, and entitlement metastasizes. Putin has become a plight. People are dying in war crimes while the USA strategizes how to help and not look obvious. We fear reprisal more than we fear the shame of watching it happen to others.

My husband texted me the worst thing anyone could have said to me; “you aren’t ready for this.” His less offensive doctrine to “I won’t let you.” The former incited a fire the latter would have laughed at. He knew from my long list of accomplishments that were never mine to proclaim for myself, that the last thing you tell me to not do is the first thing I will prove can be done. A source of pride that has cost me decades of doing something I never had my heart in to begin with. I have college degrees I never wanted based simply upon a threatening dare.

Telling me I am not ready? Like there was a university degree program I missed? Needed a certificate for? What the…? Ready? Who is ever ready to defend their belief of good should prevail over bad? A clergyman? Ready to travel? Yes. Ready to help animals? Umm? Always, yes? Ready to land near a war zone? Maybe..?

As composed as I could sound I replied, “I would rather die doing something I believe in, then wait for cancer to come find me and die with a list of things I wish I had done.”

I broke the news to the clinic a few days ago. The majority of the staff understand this. They understand me. They are supportive and inquisitive.

They cheer, and beam with enthusiasm. ‘Aren’t you excited? Are you scared?” always these two questions and always in tandem.

I still struggle and pause with a reply. I am a terrible liar. Worse I am hesitant to be transparent. It just doesn’t play back as plausible out loud.

I am not excited, nor, afraid. I am compelled. It is the most honest way to describe it. I'm not maniacally obsessed to go someplace people are fleeing from. I am not an adrenaline junkie who loves skydiving and roller coasters (I wouldn’t be brave enough for either), but, I am needed, and I can go. I have the passport, the vaccine card, the skillset and the experience to be gone for long periods of time, alone, far away, and perform a task. They need me, I can help, so, I am going. That’s all. Remove the emotional burdens of feelings,, maybe that’s my key? The autopilot every vet goes to when you do a surgery. You just go,,, one little step at a time. Push the emotions, all of them, to the back of your mind and jump in, do it.

My day to day life as a veterinarian in private practice is a bar maids soaked towel of feelings. Drowning, quick sand feelings. Feel a lot for the abused, neglected dying kitten, then try to swallow the feelings of intense hurt when a client talks down to you as the person “who does what they tell me they want me to do.” (Insert euthanize a pet that doesn’t fit their lifestyle any longer). Too often these scenarios are both the same case. People can kill you with their cruelty. Feelings hurt as much as they heal. We don’t get to choose how they are handed to you. Going away to a place I have never been to help animals without clients to tell me how I am supposed to treat them is bliss. The cruelty of war, the neglect of all human kindness being a luxury war wont permit is bare bones medicine. That’s adrenaline that feeds the soul. that’s where I want to be. At least for a little while. That’s compelling.

I am booking tickets tomorrow for Northeastern Romania. I will leave next week. There is a small group of people there already. They travel daily into the Ukraine to help move out the animals left behind. I will be there to help in anyway I can. I will post more as the journey unfolds. It is takes two days to travel. We stay in a makeshift warehouse kept warm by space heaters. There is no running water, bare bones electric and a narrow window that these abandoned starving animals have to find safety. Hundreds of dogs and cats have been extracted and taken back into Romania into an ever growing city of portable shelters. It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Unlike a natural disaster which strikes and then vanishes after it passes through this has no end in sight. This just compounds the need and direness.