Today is Independence Day of Ukraine.

Nathalie Halbout is with David Halbout in Kyiv, Ukraine.

It is the time to remember and honor those who protect Ukrainian freedom. If you read to the END, pls put + in comments. TY

July 2024, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Hospital for wounded soldiers.

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A Boy with Cornflower-Colored Eyes

“Can you help me get into a wheelchair?” I hear Sasha ask. He’s the only one in the ward who can use a wheelchair. Wheelchair=a chance to get outside, grab a quick smoke, and pick up a few snacks from the nearby kiosk.

“Sure,” I reply, expecting it to be an easy task. But it’s not for the fainthearted. Sasha’s leg is shattered in multiple places. The bones are drilled through and are held together by a metal rod —a common technique to heal fractures, developed over 50 years ago. I would have to lift the rod to move his leg-something I cannot muster the courage to do.

Noticing my apprehension, Sasha gives me a different role—hoisting one crutch behind the wheelchair seat and threading another through to support his leg.

Sasha was wounded by shrapnel, bleeding profusely. His young life was saved by a tourniquet—one of the items we fundraise for. We talk about the future and the past. The present is too painful to face. He has many surgeries ahead, and it’s uncertain how much function he’ll regain. Some pieces of bone are missing.

Sasha is only 26.

He speaks proudly of his life by the Black Sea and his job as a foreman at a construction company. I seize the chance to connect and ask him to add my sister’s place to the list of his future projects. It was damaged by the rocket explosion. He’s excited, and I go over the repairs needed—after he’s back on his feet.

Sasha loves to cook, and we bond over our shared love for smoked chicken hearts and slivers of smoked pig ears (FYI—they go great with beer). He talks dreamily about his past life.

All our lives are now divided into two parts: before the war and during the war. One day, there will be another part—after the war is over.

Sasha hands me a patch from his uniform. Patches are exchanged or gifted as symbols of patriotism. My hands tremble as I hold it. Sasha had it on during his service, through many battles and days in the trenches. He wore it when he was wounded. I promise to treasure it. He adds, “I can’t go back to fight with the same patch. I’ll need a new one.”

I look into his eyes with confidence -“Yes, you absolutely have to get a new patch.”

His eyes are the blue of cornflowers, like those that bloom abundantly in Ukrainian fields. My memory drifts back to Donbas—a region now occupied and heavily shelled, but once a place of blissful summers with my grandparents.

As a child, I remember giddily running through wheat fields, secured by the borders of cornflowers…