Protective mother: Oksi

It was there from the very beginning. I realised that my potential was much greater than staying abroad to raise my children. I was engaged in humanitarian aid, volunteering, but this is not the same as I have a medical degree and experience in intensive care. 

With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Oksi decided to take the children abroad to a safe place, and joined the ranks of the National Guard.

What do children mean to you, how do you keep in touch with them?

Children are the people for whom I am at the frontline now. This is my support and backing, which gives me the strength not to give up and move forward. Although we are physically far from each other, today we are much closer emotionally to each other. Always in touch, video chats, messages, parcels with gifts. Every day, there is a call – waking them up for school so as not to oversleep, in the evening the reporting call on how their day went, how mine was, how the mood is. Calls – mum, my stomach hurts, mum, I have a sore throat, mum, I don’t want to go to school – I’m tired, mom, I’m sad, mum, I miss you and I want to go home. Everything is like all parents and children but online.

How did you make the decision to fight?

I needed time to prepare because I am raising my children alone. I had to take them out and arrange them, see how they would be there without me, so that I could be relatively calm about them. 

I have only one motivation – to save the Country, to give my children a place to come back to, to protect them from the war. If everyone stands up for the defence, we will win. Because only together we can do it.

How did you prepare your children for the decision to join the army? (What household issues did you solve, logistical, paperwork, etc.)

My children were 12 and 14 years old at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. I always talk to them openly, as if they were adults. I told them that we had to go and help our people who are fighting. And that I needed their support and help, that it would be hard and it might take a couple of years. I promised that they would come home. We agreed on who performs certain functions: cleaning, caring for cats, shopping, studying (they study at school abroad and in Ukraine remotely). Documents were issued for my friend. She is with them. Also a testament was made for the children, and I told them where the valuables and papers were.  When I have a holiday, I go to them. I help them with their everyday needs, we spend time together, and then I come back again. When children had summer holidays, they came to Ukraine once because they were very homesick. This year, I don’t know how we’re going to do it – we haven’t planned it yet. :))

I always have their photos on my phone, and I wear a bracelet as a talisman