Ukraine: It drops me to my knees
Watching the evening news and the latest reports on the war in Ukraine is both heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching. Such overwhelming evil has taken over that country, where civilians are being targeted, whether they are young or old, men, women or children. It’s one of those things that is hard to watch, but also hard NOT to watch. We need to be aware of such atrocities happening in our world so we are not uninformed or lied to as are the Russian people. We do not live in a bubble, and we cannot put blinders on or be detached in any way from the horrors of this war.
I watched a video about photojournalist Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner who has documented the humanitarian toll of some of the world’s most horrific wars and natural disasters. This war, she says, is different, because of the overwhelming evil that she sees. Guzy intended to cover the war from the fringes, focusing primarily on refugees. But as she watched civilian casualties mount, she found staying on the sidelines in this conflict was more difficult than she had expected. What she is seeing and experiencing, personally and through the lens of her camera, is the blatant attacks on civilian sites that have come to define Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wars are usually about soldiers on a battlefield, but these are civilians that are being targeted.
For Guzy, documenting the truth of what happened in places like Bucha and Irpin is about more than just taking photographs of dead bodies — though that is a big part of it. More importantly, to her, it’s about shining a light on the lives that have been lost to war by documenting the things — and people — they’ve left behind. “They’re not just bodies. They had a life; they had a family,” she said.
But it’s not the sight of dead bodies that gets to her. “It’s the suffering of the people that are left behind that really brings me to my knees,” Guzy said. She choked back tears as she described the warmth and kindness she has received from people in Ukraine, like the “babushkas” who have welcomed her into what is left of their damaged homes and offered her tea or a hug. “It makes it harder to see what they’re going through because everyone here has been so kind, and they’re such good people,” she said. “I wish Putin would know the people that he’s doing this to.”
From my very limited vantage point, watching the news every day, there have been some things that have dropped me to my knees, as well. For example, The Washington Post published a story about Evgenia, a Ukrainian writer and mother who built a Little Free Library in Kyiv ten years ago. She wanted to encourage children to read more, and her colorful box, that looked like a birdhouse, became so popular that soon, librarians, teachers and parents got behind the idea and constructed more than 100 Little Free Libraries for small towns throughout Ukraine. In the completely obliterated neighborhoods that we see on the news today, I think about those colorful Little Free Libraries and wonder if some of them are still there, amidst the rubble. The thought dropped me to my knees.
A few days ago, when a news camera recorded the shelling and bombing that had occurred that day, in the midst of the remains of buildings was a very colorful playground, still intact but looking very much out of place amongst the gray rubble of what had been an apartment building. Families may have been able to flee to safety, but many would not have made it out alive. The sight of it dropped me to my knees.
Another news broadcast showed a man, playing his cello among the ruins of what had been his life and no doubt the life of his family and friends. He was all alone — just him and his cello, making beautiful but sad music. The sound of it dropped me to my knees.
But probably the one that took me down the most was a video of a woman, wearing a coat and hat, with a bag over her shoulder, removing the cover from a beautiful, pure white grand piano. She sat down at the piano and played for what would probably be the last time on that beautiful instrument, and I cried and cried and watched it again and cried some more. The beautiful music that came from that piano, and the heartfelt sadness of the woman playing it, dropped me to my knees.
