Reflections: On the train to Uzhhorod
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Taras Dyatlik, an evangelical Ukrainian theological educator, has shared his daily reflections in a WhatsApp group. The following is a recent journal entry from June.
In an old carriage with shabby walls and faded curtains, I am traveling on a train from Kharkiv to Uzhhorod in the same cabin as a soldier returning home for a short but longed-for vacation. His wife and children have found temporary shelter in a land saturated with pain and fear.
Yesterday, this soldier bought his daughter a small puppy. Now, he plays with it like a child, hugging and kissing it as if he has found a ray of light in this tiny creature. In a few days, he will return to the hell of war, and the puppy will remind his daughter of her father’s love.
The soldier is about 30, with a weathered, tanned face. He has scars on his arms and legs and deep wrinkles near his eyes. He naps nervously, anxiously, like almost everyone who has returned from the frontline.
Sometimes, he falls into a deep sleep and starts snoring loudly as if trying to drown out the memories of explosions and cries of pain. And when he is not snoring but still asleep, he shouts orders as if he were back in the middle of a battle.
At one of the stations, when the rattle of the wheels and the squeaks of the worn-out railway car have subsided for a moment, an elegant woman of medium height in a blue tracksuit flies out of the neighboring cabin. She’s about 35, and once upon a time, she must have been very attractive, but now her face is haggard, with deep shadows under her eyes.
Bursting into our compartment, she cries out to me, “Tell him to stop snoring! Right now! Its driving me crazy!”
I look up from my laptop screen and calmly reply, “Keep your voice down; please don’t shout. Don’t wake him up.”
Clearly unhappy with my response, she retreats to her own berth. Half an hour passes. The soldier wakes up, goes to the vestibule to smoke, and takes the puppy with him.
I hear the woman coming out of her cabin again. I meet her in the corridor, look at her beautiful yet tired face, still marked with irritation, and say what has been running through my mind all this time: “You can’t wake up a soldier who is coming home from frontline hell for a short vacation, even if he snores like a bear. Let him plunge into this healing sleep, safe from explosions and screams.”
The woman clamors, “I can’t rest when he snores! And I have my own personal front….” But then her voice breaks as she begins to tremble.
I reply gently, sensing that her reaction reflects a pain and tragedy of its own. “We are not under a hail of bullets.”
The woman freezes; her eyes are filled with tears that are about to spill out. She looks out the window and bites her lip.
After a while, the soldier returns from the vestibule, a slight smile on his exhausted face. The woman looks at me pleadingly as if asking me not to tell him about our conversation. She approaches him and says something about the puppy, gently stroking the little creature as she takes its paws in her palms and kisses them gently.
The soldier enters our cabin, softly closes the door, and lies down to rest again.
The woman turns to me, her eyes two lights of longing and pain. She whispers, barely audibly, “Forgive me. My husband was killed in the winter. I miss his snoring at night so much! I’m going to my mother; I can’t live alone anymore.”
Her words contain the pain of the whole country—the pain of every broken woman’s heart. And while the old train keeps rattling along, carrying each of us in our own thoughts, memories, and hopes, I am silently praying:
For those who are at the frontline, like this soldier.
For this woman and the irreparable loss of her beloved one.
For the opportunity to live and love again without war, which came to our land to sow death and destruction.
I pray for just peace in Ukraine:
For the healing of the wounds in our souls—of the soldiers, civilians, and volunteers who have experienced deep trauma.
And the train keeps rushing along, giving us precious moments of rest—and humanity—amid the chaos of war.
