YEVHENIIA SHMYRKO

I haven’t seen my dad since I left Ukraine at 13, which was almost four years ago (I'm 16 now). My dad was drafted the day after I left the country. I’m very grateful to be here, where I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be alive tomorrow. I don’t hear rockets or drones flying overhead, I don’t hear air raid sirens, I don’t have to worry about the constant absence of electricity, and I don’t have to hide in a shelter every day. Every time I call my parents, I’m reminded that this is still their reality. I can tell they’re trying to stay positive, but I can see in their faces how tired they are of the war. In the summer of 2025, I talked to my dad on FaceTime, and he said, “It’s been three years. I miss you.” After we hung up, I just sat down and cried. It’s hard for me to talk to other people about my parents. Most people assume I live with them, but I actually live with my sister and her husband. They’re young, so it was a bit challenging for them to take me in.

People are often surprised and ask why my mom doesn’t live with me, but she’s 50, doesn’t speak English, and has lived in a small Ukrainian village her whole life. She doesn’t want to leave home, especially since my dad can’t leave the country. My parents wanted me to get an education. My mom, who has always done physical labor, used to say she never wanted that kind of life for me. But when I was still in Ukraine, we didn’t have school for a month after the war started. When classes resumed, we constantly had to go to the shelter. Every day, we’d have the first couple of classes, then an air raid would start, and we’d sit in the shelter for two or three hours before finally going home. It became clear that the only opportunity for a good education meant I had to leave home.