My Husband Died Fighting for Ukraine Two Months After Our Wedding

I try to visit my mom in her home village in northern Ukraine at least once a month. It's roughly 170 kilometers from the capital city, Kyiv, and is remote. There are about 100 houses there, most of them uninhabited.

My mom refused to leave the country when the war started. I was successful in convincing her to move to Lviv in western Ukraine for one month while the Kyiv region was occupied by Russian forces.

But after the liberation of Kyiv's surroundings, she settled in her village once again, with no desire to ever leave her place for long. Now, in July 2023, I am back here with her again, and have been there for a few days.

I came here for a few reasons, and only one of them is known to my mom. I am here to see her and tell her everything about Kilimanjaro. But I am also here because, strangely, this is the only place where I dream of my late husband, Mykola.

He died on the frontlines of the war two days before his 28th birthday a year and two months ago. I miss him dearly and if I have a chance to see him, even if only in a troubled dream—I take that chance.

I just got back from climbing Kilimanjaro, the mountain my late husband and I had wanted to climb for years. But something was always in the way—my job, Kolya's commitments to other tours he led, COVID, and, eventually, a war that ripped my life apart and took Mykola's.

Kilimanjaro was a hard climb for me, both emotionally and physically. If I am honest with myself, I think it is this perpetual drive to fulfill the missions Kolya had and did not have a chance to complete.

Deep down, I know I will never be successful, as he has completed the most important mission; all the others fade in comparison and have no real meaning.

We met in 2018 in the mountains. I, as a client of the tour company Liketohike, providing the services of winter ascents to Carpathian Mountains' peak, Petros. Mykola was our guide and the founder of the tour company.

I thought there was something superhuman about him the moment we met. He was wise beyond his years, courageous, strong, talented, and reliable. It felt safe to embark on the most daring routes with him right away.

Mykola devoted his entire professional life to this passion—introducing people to hiking, rock climbing, mountaineering, trekking, and traveling. In Kyiv, he led and taught rock-climbing group classes in the gym and outdoors.

As part of Liketohike activities, he conducted tours and hikes for 26,783 tourists in more than 10 countries in the world. He touched the hearts of thousands of people, taught hundreds how to climb, introduced the mountains to hundreds, and instilled his love for the outdoors into everyone he met.

I can only guess how many people started hiking because of him, and how many lives were changed in the process. A week of a tour was enough for that. Sometimes several days.

As it was, for example, for me: It took me only a few days to love and to change. In the end, Mykola was the one who answered the eternal question for me: "What is love anyway?"

We lived in Kyiv until the war started at the end of February 2022. I and Kolya stayed there until it became progressively more dangerous and evacuated to Lviv by train on March 1.

Kolya decided to join the army voluntarily when we arrived in the west. He was very quiet for three days before he signed up; I did not understand at the time that he was making the hardest decision of his life.

He said: "I just know I am needed there, and this is the right thing to do."

He proposed on March 6. We had to request the postponement of his draft for one day, so we could get married. And so, we did on March 7, one day before he departed to his unit.

The service was the hardest thing he ever did—there is no mistake about it. He said life cannot prepare anyone for what the frontlines are. And he was far from unprepared both mentally and physically.

It was emotionally tough, heartbreaking, soul-wrenching, and physically exhausting. He did not stop working and fighting despite all this. Mykola performed tasks that went beyond the scope of his responsibilities. He went to conduct evacuations, military sweeps, went to deliver food and supplies to civilians, saved people, and supported his compatriots.

We had been married for two and a half months when Mykola died a hero.

Near the village of Bilohorivka on May 20, 2022, at approximately 6:30 pm, Kolya detected about 30 units of enemy equipment with a drone, thereby disrupting the breakthrough after a correction by the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But what is even more important, he lived as a hero. Anyone lucky enough to walk with him on the same trek, climb the same rock, conquer the peak, or just work together, knows this.

Kolya always said with a smile and somewhat jokingly: "The body is nothing, the spirit is everything." And I think this is what gave me strength on the mountain.

Out of the group of seven climbers, perhaps I was the only one with quite a serious intention to make it to the top and ironically enough, the only one to have significant altitude sickness symptoms.

And quite early on too. I felt dizzy reaching 3,900 meters, vomited, and lost my appetite at 4,600 meters, where I also started experiencing persistent headaches that did not subside until after the descent from the peak.

During the summit night, I felt the whole weight of symptoms in combination with oxygen levels dropping to 61, where anything below 60 is critical. I wanted to turn back three times but promised myself to take it step at a time until it feels too dangerous to go on. The body is nothing and the spirit is everything, after all.

Was it a spirit that led Kolya to sign up and make the biggest sacrifice one can do in their life, to lay down one's life for one's friends? I do not know, but it surely felt like his spirit was with me every step of my ascend.

The war goes on in Ukraine, all the cities are shelled daily, even now as I am writing this.

Sometimes it feels impossible to withstand the all-encompassing tragedy that has fallen on all of us here, but there is such a long way to go in attempting to become worthy of the prices that have been paid on the battlefields.

And so, we carry on, a step at a time until it feels too dangerous to go on, just like on Kilimanjaro.

Alina Synyavska is 30 years old. She graduated from American University in Bulgaria with a double major in Economics and Business Administration. Because of the war, she changed her occupation and now works as a Data Coordination Officer at the International Commission on Missing People, an organization aimed at addressing the issue of people who have gone missing because of armed conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration, and other causes. She lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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