“...Olga”

From my friend Emilia.

Micro Chronicle 1069 by Emilia Cerqueira, Lisbon Portugal.

OLGA VOLKOVA DIES (Ukraine)

"We received word that Olga ""Tisha"" Volkova has passed away.". She was anarchist and feminist, conducted educational activity at Cultural Center for Kharkov. Among others gave free guitar lessons, and after the start of the large-scale Russian invasion, went to serve as a paramedic. This in a Kharkov hospital for civilian and military injured. She herself was wounded and died of cardiac arrest while resting in the rear. Olga left a letter, where she writes about her love of Ukraine. We're posting it unedited:

"People's thoughts and feelings are really very important, this is what life is about. I know I changed a lot. War has actually changed me dramatically. Today I was driving from the city to a position...looking at these meadows, wide fields, this Ukraine. In these sunflowers, trees, lakes, huts, in this space, the freedom in the faces of people, the family and the light and the sky so clear. A joy to exist and see all this. 

After a while you see towns like Grigorovich, which looks as from a portrait in the Ukrainian language and literature cabinet. This and you think this is ours. This is mine. Because it's beautiful, and it's so important that it's still ‘OURS’, mine, nothing to apologize for. Because what is life to me without all this? How do we let monsters eat so much beauty? 

We don't talk about it, but we both understand that in one way or another, I'm putting my life on the line, and I don't regret it or fear it not even one bit and I'm telling you my secret What about you? I know you'll save it. It's not just words, it's this feeling, you get it, it's in you. 

I will know that my life was not useless, because the most important thing remains, the only thing left at the end. Now I feel like a crumb on the broken tectonic plates of two waring civilizations, a star in the galaxy, a drop in the ocean, I am incredibly small and insignificant, but I AM, and without me it wouldn't be the same...I may be splashing through the huge canvas of history that’s being painted right now, but no matter how small the dot, I’m happy to be here, I’m in my place."

("Olga" was a FB friend before the war.)