Friends #14 & 15 - Maria and Sergiy
The Ukrainians
Week 13. To when we were children.
Listen while you read. The three of us met at a cafe in Toronto.
There is an Italian movie called Life is Beautiful. It stars Roberto Benigni—a comedian and tells the tale of a Jewish Italian bookshop owner who uses his imagination to hide the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp from his son. “The game starts now. You have to score one thousand points. If you do that, you take home a tank with a big gun. Each day they will announce the scores from that loudspeaker,” he tells his son.
I remember meeting Maria virtually on her first day of work. “Do you speak Russian?” I asked her. “Yes, and Ukrainian,” she wrote back over Microsoft Teams. She shared that she was originally from Odesa and I told her that my mom was born in Chernivtsi but emigrated with her parents when she was a baby.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, the world watched, shocked. Maria and Sergiy spent the first week sleepless and making phone calls to ensure their parents’ safety.
“How are they now?” I ask.
Maria explains that her parents have returned to Odesa after some time in Moldova. Her grandma is in her early 90s and the medical care they need is in Ukraine. “They’ve gotten used to things, the power goes out once a day but they work around it.”
Her husband, Sergiy, says that both their parents are just happy that their kids are happy. His sister has recently settled in Montreal and they spent the New Year together.
“Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m living my best life, but I know that’s what my parents would want,” Maria says.
“It’s not your best life, you’re just living—there is no point in not living life as usual,” Sergiy points out.
I’ve been investigating individualism versus collectivism. “What do you think?” I ask Maria and Sergiy.
“I think if you look at what’s happening in Ukraine then you can see that people are quick to come together to help one another, with donations especially,” Maria says.
I point out that times of crisis are key examples of how much we rely on one another as people. “But do you think people are too into themselves?” I add.
“I think that if you don’t take care of yourself, no one will, and to be a great member of a team, you first need to be a great individual,” Maria answers, and I like her perspective.
We compare the gathering styles of Ukrainians and Canadians, agreeing that the latter is more schedule strict. “Eventually, you give in, we’re now the people who need to check our calendars to make plans,” says Sergei.
“What’s your love story?” I pry.
Sergiy gave me the short version. Maria, a longer one.
“We met through an anime club,” she explains. “Sergiy had a girlfriend at the time and I looked like her and one day he came and put his arm around me by accident thinking it was her. They eventually broke up and we started dating. We’ve been together for 12 years and married for almost four.”
Maria surprised Sergiy with a birthday trip to Florida last year. “We went to Harry Potter World,” they both say enthusiastically.
“I’ve actually never read the books and I only watched the first movie,” I admit.
“I’m waiting in the car,” Sergiy joked.
I like his humour.
At my birthday party, this past summer, I made a few people jump into our backyard pool completely clothed. Sergiy was one of those people.
“It’s important to laugh,” we all agree.
I wanted to be born at the farthest limit of the world. I’ll explore it, I said to myself, biting big chunks from it. And when I want, I’ll go straight to the core. This is the way of the world I thought in my innocence, round and around the layers of peel until the taste becomes certain.
―Abba Kovner
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