Caring without Borders: What I Witnessed in Abkhazia

In black long dress with no makeup and her white hair covered by a black scarf, Lamara told me she had stopped dressing up since her only son was killed in a war against Georgians 11 years prior. Bitterness toward the former enemy continued to kindle within her. However, at her clinic where she had been serving without payment, the nurse practitioner did not segregate Georgian repartriates from Abkhaz. Her home was always open for anyone to walk in for emergency care.

Lamara inspired me to create the following image and the story.

For Their Sons and Daughters

The young man waited eagerly for civil war to ignite. When it did at last, he jumped at the opportunity to fight for the freedom of his people. His mother knew she could not stop him. She could only pray - pray for his safe return. It did not matter to her which side would win, as long as her son came home.

“A bullet went through his heart. There was nothing we could do to save him.” The news penetrated her heart as if her life also had ended. Yet another dawn seeped into her room through the closed curtain. A tractor stopped at her door as usual to take her to the hospital where she worked. Along the road, she saw decaying corpses of enemy soldiers. At the hospital, crippled or wounded young men looked at her through their agony and despair. They all reminded her of her son - the waste of life, inevitable byproducts of war.

One evening the fighting came closer to her home. After the shooting had long ceased, she dared look outside. In the twilight, she saw the vague shadow of a fresh enemy corpse. Soon the darkness engulfed it, but the image remained vivid in her eyes. She cried for her son again.

At dawn her lone figure, illuminated only by candlelight, approached the corpse.

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