April 17th 2025

Yuriy reflects on the guilt he feels for not providing a stable life for his daughter due to his involvement in various conflicts and war zones. Despite the hardships, his daughter's message reassures him that she understands his choices and forgives him for the difficulties they've faced.

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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)  

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 hear. She celebrated her birthdays while I was at revolutions in Central Asia or worse 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 seven or eight 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 six 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 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 living 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 though 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 wasn't 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.