Ukrainian Lachrimosa

I.                  I took my son to Arlington Cemetery for the first time a few weeks ago. My father was in town, and we decided to visit his grandfather’s (my great-grandfather’s, my son’s great-great-grandfather’s) final resting place.

Arlington can be a maze, with the dazzling rows of white crosses bewildering those who seek a specific name. I had been to Arlington to find my great-grandfather’s grave before, and had a general idea where we were going (but still, we had to backtrack to find it).  

Once there, my son clamored to get out of his stroller, so we let him crawl among the headstones, his dumpling hands reaching for fallen leaves in the prickly spring grass.

“You know that old curse? About how ‘I’ll dance on your grave’?” my dad said as we watched that sweet baby boy. “I can think of a blessing—May your great-great-grandchildren crawl on your grave.”

II.                   The first time I ever told my (future) husband I loved him was in a cemetery overlooking Utah Lake. He had taken me to the cemetery since it was a gathering spot for his family—his grandparents had chosen burial plots there, and, even though it would be a few years before their death, the cemetery was already a peaceful place for family gatherings, beneath the cragged Wasatch peaks.

            I know some people might think that strange, to profess love in a cemetery. But love is not meant only for the land of the living. It is what ties us to the dead. 

 

III.                 The first time I ever visited a Ukrainian cemetery was outside of Mariupol, at the seaside dacha of a friend’s mother. We had gone to help our friend’s mother with yardwork. It was mid-May, not yet summer, and the sea breeze drifted into the garden as we pulled weeds, and spilled into the kitchen where our friend’s mother sliced radishes for a salad.

Close to their dacha was a plot of land which served as the village cemetery. Our friend took us to see it (why, I cannot remember anymore—was it because a friend or family member was buried there? Was it to satisfy a Westerner’s curiosity? Was it because another one of our Ukrainian friends wanted to see the cemetery? I wish I could remember, but I can’t).

I had never seen a Ukrainian cemetery before. While a few crosses marked the dead, I mostly saw slabs of dark stone with the faces of the deceased embossed on the stone, their names in Cyrillic, the Orthodox cross signaling belief and tradition. There were flowers—wilted, fresh, and silk—and a few gravestones had food and drink surrounding them, remnants of Radonytsya (a Ukrainian tradition the Sunday after Easter, where family and friends honor the dead with their favorite food and drink).

We did not stay long, but it made me realize how disconnected I was from my own dead. One of my grandfathers was buried two thousand miles away from where I lived; my other grandfather was buried fifty miles away. I did not have the opportunity to visit their graves regularly, to think about their lives and their love for me. What would it be like to be so connected to a place, that generations were buried alongside each other? It seemed so grounding, so holy, even.  Certainly, that Ukrainian cemetery, outside of Mariupol, drenched in sunlight and sparkling with sea air, was a holy place, where the living honored their dead, young and old, small and great.

 

IV.                Mariupol is a necropolis now. A ghost town, where even mass graves are being burned by marauding Russian troops to hide their atrocities. The number of dead is shattering to me. As of April 13^th, the number is approximately 22,000 dead—killed by shelling, by starvation, by dehydration, by exposure, by torture. I have broken down, weeping, more than once, witnessing the suffering of the Ukrainians in Mariupol. I rejoice when I hear that another one of my friends (or the friend of a friend) has escaped. I fear the worst for those I haven’t heard from since early March. I grieve for the friends who have lost loved ones—who will never know where their loved ones’ remains are located, who can never mourn at a funeral or a gravesite. 

V.                  In Kharkiv, another besieged Ukrainian city two hundred and sixty miles north of Mariupol, there is a memorial to those killed during the Holocaust. On a representation of the Ten Commandments, the only commandment engraved on those tablets, repeated over and over in multiple languages: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

thou shalt not kill

thou shalt not kill

thou shalt not kill

thou shalt not kill

thou shalt not kill

VI.             Ukraine’s story is not over yet. The dead and the living will write the next chapter of Ukrainian history. But I mourn over the injustices and evils inflicted on the Ukrainian people. I cry for their suffering, for the children who will never grow old, for the children who have already grown old.

And I grieve, knowing so many will be unable to find and honor their dead; that their great-great-grandchildren will not be able to visit their graves.