A stunning city: the port with its grain silos ready to depart for the world, the Potemkin Stairs, the city’s symbol overlooking the sea; the tree-lined avenues; people in the streets trying to live; small venues playing music - most often Italian - Battiato, Mina, Celentano… buildings that carry memory, the National Theatre Academy, the great central boulevards steeped in history, the majestic train station. It all feels so far from the war… but it isn’t. Last night the alarms, the usual alarms, and explosions toward the sea, nearby.
G., a volunteer with Condivisione fra i Popoli of the Papa Giovanni XXIII Community, tells us about new air-to-ground missile attacks.
And right now, this morning in the city, comes news of a ballistic missile landing south of the metropolis.
The war is here; the illusion is fleeting. Even today there is destruction, senseless violence. The wounds in the city tell its recent story: photos of the fallen at the front posted on monuments, OSB panels where windows were shattered, electricity that flickers on and off.
My thoughts go immediately to Kherson and Mykolaiv - the friends, now family, of Operazione Colomba - whom we said goodbye to yesterday. The emotion is even stronger because the deeper thought is: ‘Who knows if we will ever see each other again…’ The front is constantly shifting.
The battle for Pokrovsk is terrible, and the news is not encouraging; they speak of an imminent fall. People know it and talk about it… more dead, many more, on both sides.
Why?
How is it that no one wants to find a different path?
Propaganda is intrusive here too, relentless on the billboards along the roads, more and more so as you get closer to the front.
But the distrust in the air brings no Peace. The young people of Kherson once again speak of feeling hunted, drones overhead all day long, their constant buzzing… and on the other side, a government growing ever more corrupt - cronyism, dirty deals - and they feel danger behind them just as much as in front, on the front line.
And yet the smiles on the faces of the community leaders and all the people around them do not fade. It’s a bitter smile, but it still speaks of hope, of trust in the future, of faith in something greater, despite everything.
We say goodbye to the parishes supporting families, to the Dom Kulturi of Kherson that welcomes hundreds of people in need every day, to the intense work of reconstruction - piece by piece: homes, buildings, water, electricity, but also the social fabric, youth activities, and children’s programs.
At the pastor’s house, an English lesson for the young people, taught by a 19-year-old woman- determined, courageous, engaging.
A memory and a blessing for all: an afternoon in the park in Mykolaiv with B., a 9-year-old boy from Kherson, a refugee, orphaned after his father fell at the front - running through the trenches, doing acrobatics on the earth’s wounds, a sweet snack with a Kinder bar.
May this small memory leave in us, and in him, the sweetness of a presence, simple and true.
The farewell messages from Kherson and Mykolaiv speak of the strength of Operazione Colomba’s closeness, a presence that encourages, that spurs people on, that breaks the sense of isolation and loneliness so many there feel.
‘We are with you’: we want to try to show them that—with an embrace, a laugh, a story, attentive listening - while the background of alarms and explosions goes on, frightening less when someone is there to share it with you.
We return home, to family and friends who, more than ever, have been here with us, with them, through our thoughts, worries, and prayers - precious medicine for the soul.
How we long to embrace everyone again!
I like to say goodbye with the image of Odesa’s beach on the Black Sea: children feeding the birds, mothers and grandparents trying to distract them, and behind them a sky from which death and destruction will still come. But today we try not to think about it - maybe that’s how it ends sooner, as it does in dreams.
Farewell Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa.
G.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
