Shownotes Transcript
It is April 17. My daughter has never had a peaceful normal life. And first and foremost that's my fault. I was not able to save a single penny for her when her mother took our home and all our money. I often had to deny her things when she was very little because the loan for the home we lost was left on me and we were always short of money.
I was far away on days that were important to her. She celebrated her birthdays while I was at revolutions in Central Asia or wars in the Middle East. She saw me return with more and more gray in my hair, saw my injuries and understood that I could be killed or come back crippled that burdened her deeply from childhood.
I turned down excellent job offers in London and Prague, where we could have moved 7 or 8 years ago. I simply could not bring myself to leave my homeland, could not convince myself to go abroad even for a lot of money. And because of me, my daughter stayed in Ukraine, where a bloody war soon broke out.
I knew this war was inevitable about 6 months before the full scale invasion. I knew it and had every opportunity to leave the country like many of my friends did. I mean ex-friends.
They all settled well abroad and are living full lives. But I stayed and I joined the army as soon as the big war started, even though I could've stayed behind and continued working as I did before. My daughter and I have never spoken about all this, but I've always felt guilty for leaving her without a penny, for being far away, for not taking her to Europe, for going to war.
In short, for doing everything to make her life harder, not easier. And I keep making it harder. She recently wrote me a message about all this without me telling her a word about my disturbances.
It started with simple words: "You did everything right". She wrote that she worries about me and even tried to pray for she has never been religious. And at the end she wrote: "I don't know how I would feel about you if you had to decide to hide from service".
You know, that means a lot to me. I was not the best father, but I was forgiven for it. I was far away, but I always came back to my daughter. Maybe I'll come back this time too.