On March 21, at midnight, during a combat mission, I suffered a severe spinal cord injury. For a long time I did not know whether I would walk or stay in a wheelchair. Once it became clear, it got a little easier. I understood that I had to adapt to a new life.

I inherited a single beehive. I found out about a beekeepers’ union from the Kharkiv region — they helped with equipment and bee colonies. I felt my greatest inner strength when my son started first grade. I decided to expand my business so that my child would get a decent education.

Maybe one day our honey will be sold on the shelves of our community’s shop. And it will supply it fully with good Polissia honey.

For the first year we turned down invitations to celebrations. We kept waiting: any moment now it will be over, and we will come, congratulate everyone, make up for it all. A year passed, then a second — and in the third I understood: we may be losing something. Life goes on, and nobody knows what tomorrow brings — whether we will all still be here, whether there will be anyone left to visit.

This year, thank God, everyone gathered at the New Year table: some in person, some by video call. That was my dream, and it came true.

Now, when we sit down at the table, we no longer wish each other wealth and prosperity the way we once did — just that we treasure the moments we have now. Because tomorrow they may be gone.

It was night, a strike — and the ceiling came down on us. Darkness, everything crumbling. A boy named Danylo was sitting beside me at the console. In the dark I said: “Dania?” — “Huh?” — “Well, thank God we are alive! The ceiling came down, so we will get a new renovation!” And he said to me: “You are strange. We were almost crushed and you are smiling.” I told him: if I had fallen apart right then, I simply would not have made it through.

My husband left to defend the country in December — and everything fell on me: the house, the children, the farm. What changed most was my attitude to time. Now I know that “later” may never come.

I felt my greatest strength when I helped a woman who came from the occupied territory broken, barely alive: she was not eating, she did not notice her own children. She said: “Do whatever you have to with me, just bring me back to a normal life.” We walked that road together for a long time. She is a completely different person now — smiling, alive.

Resilience is being able to ask for help. Right now we are all one wall: if someone falls, the others hold them up.

I buried my son. We fought together in the Kursk region, he was ten kilometers away from me. I came to see him before a battle — I looked into his eyes and they were somehow clouded. As a father, I felt something would happen. He said to me then: “Dad, do not worry, everything will be fine. I have already booked a bathhouse in Sumy — we will go and rest.” A few days later I was told he had been killed. I came, collected him and took him to Sumy.

The lads ten or fifteen years younger than me I called my children. I looked after them, told them not to go where they should not. We shared the last can of stew, the last cigarette.

The pain of losing a son never goes away — it stays for life. But you can live with it: laugh, rest, work. Because life does not end after the war either.

The hardest period was not even the beginning of the war, but our blackout. No power, in hard frosts. And everything fell apart at once: the car broke down, there were problems at home, the cat could not take the explosions and died of a heart attack, they were bombing the depot nearby, windows were blown out. It felt as if a mountain had fallen on my head and I did not know where to move next.

But I knew I had work. However hard it is, you have to get up and go. At work there was other people: a heating point, warmth, light, a gas cylinder we used to make tea for everyone. When things are at their worst for you, help someone else and you will feel better. A bad day does not mean a bad life.

Our artist, a veteran, has a painting: a poplar was cut back like this, and it put out new shoots. That, to me, is our Ukrainians. I would not want us to be cut back so hard — but the war is already here, so the shoots have to keep coming.

A young man comes up, twenty-two years old, a border guard, four years spent in captivity. He asks: “Mister, how do you live after this?” At first I caught myself thinking that I am already “mister” to him. And then I hear: “Look, there are fifteen of us on this trip today, we are all from the same unit. How do you live after this?” For about five minutes I think I forgot to breathe. And in that moment I realized how rich I am — because I have a child.

On the first trip they were silent. The next time they were already playing cards and telling jokes. The head medic called afterwards: “What do you do with them? After your trip there is a queue for the psychologists — everyone wants to talk.”

We begin every trip with the word “Thank you.” Simply for being here, now.

The father of a girl I worked with went off to fight. It was her birthday — we congratulated her, music started playing, and in the middle of the celebration she suddenly began to cry. She missed her dad terribly. She was only five, the youngest in the class, but she always tried to be strong — for her mother, for her little brother.

That year I understood: children wear masks too, just like adults. It just takes a little less effort to recognize those masks.

Resilience is the ability not to break one step before the finish, before victory. A person can fall, because a person is weak. But resilience lies precisely in getting up after the fall and managing to stand.