She was wearing unicorn pyjamas.
As I write these words, there is a six-year-old, unicorn pyjama-wearing child, covered in stuffed animals, wrapped in fleecy blankets, asleep in her bed upstairs.
Her tummy will probably be sticking out and she’ll no doubt be contorted into a shape whereby you can’t tell where she starts and the duvet ends. Her cheeks will be like pink suede, all strokeable and warm to the touch.
And, like every other night, there will be a note buried in there with her, telling someone in the house how much she loves them.
Yet, at the exact same time, in this same world, under that luminous moon of ours, there is another little girl.
No more rainbows
She’s exactly the same age. And she’s also lying there in unicorn pyjamas.
Devastatingly, however, the last thing she was covered in was nothing tactile. It was her own blood and the hands of a stranger trying to coax life back into her tiny lungs.
She’s not curled up with her bottom in the air, as only children do. Nor is she warm to the touch. She’s lying on a metal slab, somewhere, rigid and cold, covered only by her jacket.
She’s not upstairs. She is all alone.
No more pictures will be drawn. No more rainbows coloured in.
Her mum heard: “I love you mama” for the last time, although she couldn’t have known it then.
Because, on Sunday, when she went to the supermarket with her parents, a Russian shell attack in Mariupol saw this wee one fatally wounded.
A photographer captured the horror and heartbreak. And I haven’t thought of anything else since.
Her name is Polina
On Monday, just one day later, deputy mayor of Kyiv, Vladimir Bondarenko, shared a photo of a young girl named Polina. Thought to be about 10 years old, it’s been reported that she was shot dead, in her car, while trying to flee the capital with her family.
What were you doing when you were 10?
I was backcombing my fringe and wondering if high school was going to be like Grange Hill. I was writing stories and playing New Kids on the Block singles on a red record player.
Report cards were being sent home that said things like “talks too much”.
I bet Polina’s brother and sister – the only ones who have survived – would trade every fibre of their beings for a chance to hear their sister say anything, anything, one more time.
Lives unwritten
I wonder what these young women would have become.
In my job as an obituaries writer, I have the privilege of honouring the men and women, young and old, who have lived in our area. My favourite ones, if it’s OK to have such a thing, are those of the “almost” centenarians.
When I look at these young lives now lost, it’s like being handed a pile of blank paper
Their lives tell of monumental change. Of love stories. Of overcoming adversity. They document career highs, accolades and achievements. You could write a book, not just an article, from the stories garnered.
But, when I look at these young lives now lost, it’s like being handed a pile of blank paper. The stories that should have filled these papers remain unwritten.
I wonder if Polina could have come the University of Aberdeen, like so many other Ukrainian students before her.
I wonder if she could have used her language skills – probably knowing Ukrainian and Russian – and the English that she would have learned on the way, to secure a job here, helping transition our city from one form of energy to another.
Could there have been a photo frame on her mantlepiece? Maybe containing a treasured picture in which she wore a traditional, colourful Ukrainian flower garland headpiece on her wedding day, or a graduation photo, perhaps.
I wonder.
Think small
It’s understandable that, when we are faced with relentless headlines of combat, conflict, invasion and threat, we focus only on the big picture. Miles and miles of tanks haunt our thoughts and fuel our fear.
I doubt, when she was in the supermarket, Polina was even thinking about essential supplies. Pink marshmallows are probably more likely
In Europe’s second largest country containing millions of people, perhaps only a few hundred casualties and fewer deaths, so far, seems like a win.
But, if you’re tempted to go there, let me bring you back to this: she was wearing unicorn pyjamas.
She had no political opinion. There were no thoughts on whether there’s a double standard being employed in how we have embraced Ukrainian defence tactics but don’t offer the same support to Palestine, for example.
And I doubt, when she was in the supermarket, she was even thinking about essential supplies. Pink marshmallows are probably more likely.
There are no winners in war. But by far the biggest victims, both now and as they live with the trauma of this for generations, are children.
She was wearing unicorn pyjamas.
Lindsay Bruce is obituaries writer for The Press and Journal, as well as an author and speaker
