"People live their lives not comprehending what happiness it is to hug children." Story of a woman whose entire family was taken by war

At 12:15 on 3 March 2022, the second life of 43-year-old Svitlana Zheldak commenced. On that day, Russian aircraft struck the house where she had grown up. All her family died there: 42-year-old husband Mykhailo, 21-year-old daughter Polina with her fiancé Yevhen Kovalenko, 33, 14-year-old son Hlib, and 86-year-old grandmother Halyna Pecherna.

Almost a year has passed since the tragedy, but time has not dulled the pain. Svitlana is still learning to live her second life, a life she did not ask for.

Sviltana tells Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia about her family's tragedy.

 "All my life my husband doted on me"

Podusivka, a western suburb of the city of Chernihiv, has always been cosy, green and truly homely. But after the events of February and March 2022, when the Russians tried to capture the city, the district looks "wounded". Schools, streets, homes, shops, petrol stations, trees, and most importantly, people: everything and everyone has felt the destructive force of war here.

Every day, Svitlana Zheldak passes by the place where her childhood home once stood. It belonged to her father's family, but it was extended by her maternal grandfather. In March 2022, a Russian rocket destroyed the house and killed Svitlana's family. Only a pile of broken bricks, boards, slate, plaster and furniture is left as a reminder. Besides, the large metal and smaller wicket gates survived the assault.

"I grew up on this street. My school was 100 metres down the road. Here, people don't just say a polite ‘hello’, they know each other. Every Easter, we would just set the table on the street and celebrate with the neighbours. We fell in love, got married, raised children and were happy here," Svitlana Zheldak recalls.

She met the love of her life – Mykhailo – at school. They studied together in high school and lived on adjacent streets. The couple got married and had two children.

The young family lived with Mykhailo's parents. Mykhailo worked as an engineer in Chernihivoblenergo [Oblast power distribution company – ed.]. He was advancing to more senior roles. Svitlana was a saleswoman in a baby-food store. A few years ago, she retrained as a massage and waxing therapist.

 "Misha [short for Mykhailo] doted on me my whole life. Next to him, I felt like a little girl who didn't have to worry about anything. He allowed me to be myself, protected me from all the troubles of this world. We lived a happy life together. And in one moment, I lost this life of mine. It hurts a lot," Svitlana says with tears in her eyes.

"It's difficult to look at teenagers"

In the morning, Svitlana drinks her coffee, puts a leash on Dar, her beloved German shepherd,  and walks the dog through the playground of a school destroyed by Russian troops. It has no windows, and the roof and walls are damaged. Suddenly, two boys aged about 12 or 14 emerge from the ruins.

"I often see children here. Where are the parents looking? What if, God forbid, something collapses? People live their lives not comprehending what a treasure it is to have a family, to hug children... It is difficult for me to look at teenagers now. When I meet my son's classmates, they do not even say hello, they fall silent, lower their heads and pass by. I understand that they probably just don't know what to say. They are children..." Svitlana ponders, holding the dog by the leash.

All the attention and love that Svitlana once gave to her children and husband, is now going to Dar. He is active, restless and devoted to his owner. When Svitlana leaves to go somewhere, he brings her slippers to the couch and sleeps on them.

Svitlana bought him as a puppy 10 days before the start of full-scale war. It was a birthday present for herself and her son Hlib. Both were born in February.

 "You know, Hlib was growing up as an active boy. He was fond of sports: he did wrestling, and in the evenings he went to a gym near the school. Together with his father, he collected music CDs, and he had his own collection of knives. He really wanted a dog. Hlib had a heightened sense of justice, it was difficult for him to make friends with other children," says Svitlana.

The dog was to become a friend for her son. But the dog got dealt a different card – to help the mother survive the biggest loss of her life.

At the weekend, Svitlana walks him three times a day. One long walk must be in the woods. There, away from onlookers, she can pour out her pain through screams and tears. On weekdays, she takes him for a walk only twice. She devotes the rest of the time to her clients.

Zhenia would cycle more than 70 kilometres to see his fiancée

In her job, Svitlana performs anti-cellulite massage and other services. In 2019, her daughter encouraged Svitlana to change her job: she showed Svitlana an ad about training. Later, her daughter taught Svitlana how to manage social media and attract clients.

"Polina would be cross with me, but I don't have the strength to write or post photos now. That's why I work mainly with the clients that I had already had before the war. I love my business, but I can't fully enjoy it now due to stress," Svitlana says, as if to justify herself.

Mother and daughter have always been close. And when Polina grew up, they became friends. Polina studied at the Teacher Training College in the city of Nizhyn to become an English teacher. She worked as a tutor.

Polina met her future fiancé, Yevhen Kovalenko, in 2019. He worked and studied in Nizhyn, but they met each other on Instagram.

"They were planning to get married, open a language school in Nizhyn, and later have children... If they didn't see each other for a long time, they would exchange handwritten letters. When the coronavirus pandemic began, Polia [short for Polina] switched to remote working, and Zhenia [short for Evhen] stayed in Nizhyn for work. Every weekend he got on his bike and rode to see Polia in Chernihiv. The distance is about 70 kilometres from A to B, and a whole 90 kilometres by road. I also joked with him: Are you sure you are normal? You ride such a long distance by bicycle every week," Svitlana recalls with a smile.

Svitlana loved her future son-in-law. She says he immediately became like a son to her. The five of them dreamt and made holiday plans together: herself and Misha, Polia and Yevhen, and Hlib. They had planned to travel around Ukraine in June 2022, to celebrate their 22nd wedding anniversary and Mykhailo's 43rd birthday. But it was not to be.

"I'm with you until my last breath"

The full-scale war caught the family by surprise. On the very first day, Polina and Yevhen returned from Nizhyn. Together with Svitlana, Mykhailo, Hlib and Dar, they moved from Svitlana’s mother-in-law to Svitlana's parents' house.

Svitlana’s father stayed at work in Nizhyn. Only her mother and grandmother stayed at home. The latter had lived all her life in a village near Chernihiv. She raised three children and worked on a collective farm. But when her husband died, she moved in with her daughter in Chernihiv. Hanyla Pecherna's childhood was coloured by the Second World War. And in the same way, she lived her last days through a war.

"We decided that we would be safer in my parents' house. It seemed stronger. It even had an inner room where the rule of ‘two walls’ almost worked," Svitlana says, looking at the ruins of the house. [The rule of ‘two walls’ is a safety rule whereby a person keeps two walls without windows between them and the street during attacks – ed.]

In the early days, the family hid in a basement during air raids. But Hlib had allergic asthma and had trouble breathing because of the dust and dampness. On 1 March, he said he would stay at the house. The other members of the family made the same decision.

Those were stressful days. People did not understand what would happen next and everyone experienced stress in their own way. On the morning of 3 March, Svitlana told each of her family that she loved them very much. She says it was as if she felt that it was the last time.

"On that day, we visited my mother-in-law. We were going to return around noon and then the air-raid siren sounded. The grandmother was home alone, so we ran there quickly. Myself, Misha, Dar, Polina and Zhenia laid down in one room. Hlib laid down on the sofa in another, my mother and grandmother were with him," Svitlana says, pointing at the place where her parents' home used to be.

A few minutes passed and Svitlana heard a loud boom. In an instant, her home, which she thought was a fortress, collapsed like a house of cards. The mobile phones of those involved froze at the same time – 12:15.

"I heard how they were dying. Misha was breathing, straining, as if he was trying to push a wall panel off himself, but he couldn't. At some point he just froze. Grandma and Zhenia died instantly. I heard Polina start crying. In a moment, she too fell silent. My mother said that Hlib called me several times and then fell silent," Svitlana says, crying.

People quickly came to the aid of the victims and started to clear the rubble. When they got Hlib, his heart was still beating. But in a few minutes, he died.

"My husband always told the children: 'I'll be with you until I take my last breath.' And that's how it happened," Svitlana says.

Miraculously, she and her mother remained practically unharmed. On 5 March, they left Chernihiv. They headed to the west of Ukraine, where Zhenia's brother lived.

"The pain never goes away"

There are hundreds of fresh graves in the old cemetery, where people have no longer been buried for a few decades. Many of them bear flags. But there are also many civilian graves. Among them, group burials catch the eye: places where a whole family is buried in one grave. They did the same for the Zheldak family: a wide grave and a tall cross with five names on it.

Svitlana’s mother-in-law buried them all at the beginning of April. Svitlana asked to wait for her return, because she wanted to hug her family for the last time. But Zhenia's mother and friends convinced her that it was better to bury them as soon as possible. At that time, people were afraid that a rocket could strike the morgue at any moment and there would simply be no one to bury…

"I miss Misha and the children very much. I don't need anyone in this life the way I need them. And no one will ever need me the way they did. The pain doesn't go away. I still can't comprehend that they are gone. Sometimes in the evenings it seems to me that Polia is with Zhenia in Nizhyn. Misha is at work, Hlib is at training. This self-deception helps me not to lose my mind," Svitlana says, standing next to the grave.

Rockets on the calendar

Two calendars lay on Polina's desk among her personal belongings and photos. They are open on 3 March. A rocket is pictured on one of them, and a quote about a new life on the other. Now these messages seem prophetic.

Svitlana brings sweets to the children's rooms in her mother-in-law's house. She believes that they see it and rejoice. In Polina's room, everything remained almost as it was during her lifetime. Svitlana comes here to be in silence and paint by numbers. And Svitlana's mother lives in Hlib’s room. However, many of the boy's belongings remain there: boxing gloves, drawings, CDs…

After the death of her family, Svitlana's days became all the same. Before the war, Mykhailo always cooked dinner for the family, he used to return from work earlier and generally liked to cook. No one sat at the table without their mother, having dinner together was a family tradition that brought them all closer together. Now Svitlana is having dinner alone. And it hurts a lot.

For a long time, Svitlana could not enter the shopping centre and shops that she had liked to visit with her daughter. Friends helped her to cross those thresholds, friends who were and remain by her side during difficult days. At home, Dar and her cat Kitty help Svitlana not to go mad. The cat entered her life after the tragedy.

"I believe that my children and my husband are nearby, and they hear me, it is just that I can't hug them. I talk to them in my mind when I walk with Dar in the woods. Of course, this may sound strange... But once I asked my family: if they could indeed hear me, to let a ginger cat come to me at home or in the woods. In two months, Kitty ran to me from some crows that had pecked her, when I was walking in the woods with Dar," Svitlana says, gently hugging the cat and the dog.

The story was prepared by the Memorial project. It tells the stories of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russia. To report data on Ukraine's losses, fill out the forms for fallen servicemen and civilian victims.

Translation: Oxana Hart

Editing: Susan McDonald