“The last thing I expected on a random Thursday night was to pick up a phone call from my mother and the fear engulfing my body that everyone I loved and knew back home was going to possibly die, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
On February 24th, 2022, it was around 1:00 a.m. when I received a phone call from my mother. What I was doing before I received the call is something I can’t recall to this day. After that phone call, time changed as a whole for me. There was life before I received the phone call, and there is now. Ukraine had, at this point, been in high tension with Russia, and we have had many conflicts. Ask a Ukrainian when conflicts began as a whole within the country, and you’ll probably get the average answer that “there hasn’t been peace in the country since around 2013.”
However, since the early hours of February 24th, my life has changed drastically. Getting a phone call from my mother in a panic telling me that Russia had announced and launched a military invasion of Ukraine and that they had begun shooting missiles at the country— well, it felt like my body had gone through all the stages of grief in one hot flash. My hands started trembling, it felt like chaos had flooded my entire body, yet the only thing you could physically see was a tremble in my hands and legs. A high-pitched frequency started ringing in my ears, but eventually, the pounding of my heart overtook the ringing sound.
Panic rushed through me as I tried to dial my family and friends living in Ukraine at the time. The first person I dialed the phone to was my grandmother, Halina. For context, my grandmother is a widow who lives with her deaf sister back in Ukraine. She’s a hard-working woman who does the most with her abilities; even if she is struggling herself, you would never be able to tell. She will put a smile on her face and proceed to be kind, supportive, and sweet to those she meets. She is my rock and one of the most fearless women I have had the privilege to meet in my time and be related to.
Our Conversation
One call, no response. More anxiety ruptured inside of me. On the second call, no response once again. As my shaky voice kept repeating, “please pick up, please pick up,” I called her for the third time, and this time, she answered. Our conversation was brief, but I was holding onto every word she said. The last few sentences we shared that night ruminate with me to this day.
“Grandma, please. We’ll figure something out. Please get out of the country; get to safety. I love you so much; I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to live.” I said, holding back my tears, and my voice cracked.
“No Khrystyna, my darling, I’m not leaving. If my country goes down, I will die with my country. This is my home.” Before I even got a second to refute her statement, she quickly said,
“I need to go, Khrystyna, but I love you so much. I hope you grow up to be a beautiful and strong woman in the future. I wish all your dreams come true, even if I won’t be there to see it. Goodbye, my dearest sweet girl.”
She ended the call instantly without me getting to say another word. The pure anger I had at what felt like my grandmother’s stubbornness at that moment, I had never been angrier at my phone before. I didn’t want the call to end; I didn’t want that to be the end. I didn’t want those to be the last words I spoke with my grandmother. I didn’t want that to be the way it all ended. It just couldn’t be. But yet, I was so powerless at that moment. I couldn’t do anything. What was happening was out of my control. It was out of everyone’s control. I just had to sit there and accept the possibility that everyone and everything I knew of from back home could be killed or blown up by a missile in seconds, and that would be it.
The panic of wrapping my head around the fact that while everyone ran away from danger to safety, my grandmother did the opposite. She did not run, she did not flee; she stayed. But it took me a long time to understand that her stubbornness was really the actions of a brave and strong woman who stood ’till the end for what she believed in. Even if it meant losing her own life in the process.
6 months later
During sorority recruitment, during my time in the Gamma Phi Beta house that day, I was asked: “who is a female role model that you look up to?” The first person who flashed to my mind was my grandmother. Halina is a woman of bravery. A woman that stands solid on her own ground and what she believes in. She is such a strong and solid person, yet contrastingly the softest and most warm soul I can pinpoint in my life.
So I told the sisters of Gamma Phi Beta that I was talking to that day that my grandmother was my role model and her story. It was hard to share such an intense and intimate story, but I allowed myself to feel the pain while keeping my composure, highlighting my utmost respect for her.
Now writing this article, it is November, and I am glad to state that I am now a newly initiated member of Gamma Phi Beta here at UConn. I am proud to represent and stand in solidarity with so many inspiring women who all believe in the same philanthropic mission of building strong girls. The goals and vision of the sorority are something that resonated with me strongly and impacted my decision heavily when it came down to where I wanted to be. It impacted me so strongly I went ahead with doing the most advised-against decision, and I single-preferenced Gamma Phi Beta.
In my mind, the answer became clear. This community was where I wanted to be moving forward in my time at UConn and for life. I thought to myself what my grandma would do and decided it was either Gamma Phi Beta or nothing else.
becoming a better person
My grandmother’s mission to stay strong to her beliefs while continuing to inspire for the greater good is something I took a lesson from in my daily life. I learned this summer how to recognize what I, Khrystyna Stets, stand for as a person and what my values are. Then further learned how to represent these values correctly through my actions. I’m not perfect. However, it is a work in progress. It’s a self-fulfilling mission for me: being able to stand just as strongly as my grandmother behind the words I speak and not backing down to whatever faces me.
Doing this has taught me a big lesson about bravery. Because no one ever tells you how hard it is to stick to your words, let alone when in the face of potential danger or loss. And throughout this journey this summer, because I stuck to my core beliefs, I lost out on a lot of things. However, it had to be done to put in the true work of living by the truth you speak. Even though it will never compare to standing in front of the face of potential death, it is something that is still not easy.
I started out with this self-fulfilling mission wanting to change something in the way I lived. I was unhappy and sad due to a bunch of reasons at the time, one of them being the Ukraine conflict. However, I wanted to live well and produce good with my time on this earth. I wanted to be the reason someone felt supported, heard, loved, admired, respected, or cared for that day.
So I set out on the original mission that with whatever time I had on this earth, to be the good I had searched for longingly in my life. And with every day that passed this summer, I went to bed every night, knowing that even though the world around me seemed so dark, cold, and cruel, at least I was good and always approached anything I did with 100% warmth and pure intentions. I could count on myself to be the shining light in a dark and hopeless time.
So I took the mission upon myself; as mentioned before, it wasn’t easy at first. However, with time and with multiple experiences of standing your ground, in a way, life becomes a little easier. I can’t explain exactly to you what I mean by this, but I just remember one day sitting on a bench after my shift at work had ended. And even though I was physically exhausted from working almost 15 hours that day, I realized that internally, something inside me was changing.
I felt myself becoming content and happy with my life. It was a gradual shift that eventually built up after time and time again of standing to my values. But I was learning how to feel happy and content once again, something I truly thought I believed no longer existed for me at one point. It felt almost as though a gust of life was blown into me. I lacked some strength previously, which was bestowed onto me because I wanted to be like the strongest person I looked up to at the time, my grandma.
The goal of the mission was never to be happy or a quick fix of what’s going to make me feel good. The mission was living well, honestly, lovingly, and to my values, just as my grandmother did. And in an unexpected turn of events, the impacts of this decision have pushed me onto a better path in this life while allowing me to experience all the positive things about life again: happiness, joy, excitement, love, and connection.
Conclusion
If you couldn’t tell by now, I have great admiration and respect for my grandmother. And my heart hurts for everyone impacted by the Ukrainian-Russian conflicts, and I know every story out there is unique and equally important. Most of us may either know of someone through friends, colleagues, classmates, and so on who has been impacted by this inhumane travesty occurring in our world. The situation seems to be progressively getting worse, and there is a lack of direct action we can take to stop it. However, doing everything in our power to at least try is what matters at its core.
Even though I truly do not know what my impact may be on the world and its current events, all I know is that the inspiration and strength my grandma has presented me through all this is amazing. Yet through all the daily missile strike warnings and the constant fear of death among the people in Ukraine, I write this proudly, knowing my grandmother is an unstoppable force. She continues to go to work and attend to her responsibilities before the escalation of events earlier in 2022. She helps with donations and helps the Ukrainian troops who are currently on the battlefield or returning injured or, in some cases, dead. She does everything she can, and every time we speak, you can notice a slight glimpse of sadness in her tone if you really pay attention. However, just as stubborn as I am, she will also not admit that the environment and the life she lives in has an impact on her. She will continue to be uplifting and caring when we speak.
While her life continues to get bombarded with difficulties, physical, emotional, financial, and environmental, I am proud to say I was able to have the privilege to also inspire my grandmother this summer in an unexpected way. I started fishing this summer whenever I could, a hobby of mine I haven’t participated in since I was young. And I would always tell my mother and grandmother my fishing stories and share pictures of me with all the fish I caught. And one day, sometime in August, my grandmother sent me a photo of her fishing. I was told she was inspired by me to go fishing.
A warmth engulfed my heart as I looked at the photo. My grandmother looked relaxed, like she was enjoying her time, but most importantly, she looked happy. The bright and effortless smile she had while holding the fish she caught up was something that stuck with me. Through the midst of this whole conflict with Russia, I was able to collectively make one direct positive impact on it all. I had the greatest privilege: inspiring my grandmother to find happiness and smile once again.
Slava Ukraini, Heroyam Slava.
No personal photos are utilized throughout this article for privacy reasons.