reactions in different people.
Yesterday someone I know asked me, "Cat, could you just go and check on Mum? The neighbours are out and she isn't answering the phone."
I went. I went without hesitation because his mother is in her late eighties. His mother is also Ukrainian by birth.
Her son, with whom she lives, had to go to work. Either he calls her at lunch time or one of the neighbours will check. They know where to find the key if they need to go in. I know where to find the key.
But the back door was open. I could see V... She was just sitting at the kitchen table...and I mean "just sitting". She was staring at something I couldn't see. It was a long way from where she was sitting.
She looked at me after a moment and I said as gently as I could, "A... was worried. You didn't answer the phone."
"I was afraid," she told me. I gave her a hug and she held on for a long moment. I could feel her shaking.
I took their phone and rang her son. "She was a bit anxious about answering the phone," I told him. I passed the phone to her. She spoke to him hesitantly in Ukrainian - a language he doesn't really understand. He was born here.
Then she passed the phone back to me. A... and I agreed that the situation in what she still considers to be her "home" country is something she is finding very traumatic. He will now organise for more neighbours further down the street to also be available for the present while. They have already offered but today he wanted someone who knew where to find the key if necessary.
I finished the conversation with A... His mother was up and moving around the kitchen making us both a cold drink. We sat at the kitchen table and I talked to her about A... and how hard he is working right now and about her garden.
When I left about twenty minutes later she was getting ready to deal with some seedlings she had "rescued" from the garden centre. The seedlings will probably grow for her.
I muttered a word of thanks to the sunflowers along her fence as I pedalled off.
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