Today we went to the defenders cemetery. We brought flowers to lay on some of the graves. There were 1000s! It is impossible to put into words the heartbreak of standing among those 1000s of graves, row after row of Ukraine’s defenders. So many were young men, barely adults, some only eighteen. Others in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, men who were conscripted into this seemingly endless war with Russia. All of them loved. All of them gone.
A woman sat sobbing by the grave of a young man, I believe her son. Later, when I walked past, I saw his age on the headstone, he was 19 , he died Oct. 31, 2025. I did not disturb her grief. Another woman stood at the resting place of an older man, maybe her husband. Tears streamed down her face. As I walked by, she reached for my hand. I held it gently, wordlessly, and I laid a flowers on the grave. In that moment I was barely breathing myself, the weight of her sorrow breaking my heart.
Every grave has a photograph, soldiers in their uniforms, and often another image of them in their everyday lives. Smiling. They were sons, fathers, mothers, daughters. Yes, there were women defenders too. Each face was a life needlessly cut short.
I find myself asking again and again: What does war ever accomplish? Those who fight, who are injured and die, they are the pawns moved by the powerful, by those who design war rather than endure it. When will humanity learn? What is wrong with us that we return to brutality, again and again? How many generations must bury their sons and daughters before this lesson is learned? I walked to the far end where the newest graves are, so many fresh mounds in the last sixty days alone.
I was told there are only twenty gravesites left.
And this is just Lviv.
