Goodbye, sister. Until we meet again.

Goodbye, Sister

The woman who stops the bleeding

I woke up early this morning. The clocks have turned back an hour. My phone says five o'clock; my wristwatch insists it is six. Somewhere between the two, I lie awake thinking about a woman I met on a bus in Europe, wondering whether she is still alive.

We are here tying up loose ends and holding close to family fractured by my father's passing. We travelled across Europe to spend time with our second-born son, who lives in Toulon, a beautiful Mediterranean town of olive trees, coastal walks and sea air.

With time on our hands, we decided to take a twenty-six-hour bus journey from Toulon to Katowice, crossing six countries and passing through the magic of Monte Carlo, Milan, Venice and so many other cities.

But the greatest adventure was not the scenery. It was the strangers who climbed aboard and, for a few hours, became part of our lives.

That is how I met Alexandra, known affectionately as Sasha.

Sasha is a Ukrainian-French combat medic heading to Kostiantynivka, back towards the war in Ukraine.

As night settled over Europe and the seats around us emptied, we found ourselves at the back of the bus, talking like schoolgirls. We shared stories of life, love and disappointment. Eventually, we spoke about grief.

Sasha is only a few years younger than me. Like me, she is a mother. Her thirty-one-year-old son was killed in a drone attack in Ukraine in August. She had buried him in his homeland.

There are no words adequate to describe the burial of your child. You can lay your son in the earth, but you cannot bury the love that made him yours. You cannot silence the instinct to protect him. You cannot make your heart understand why you must leave him behind.

And yet Sasha was returning to war.

She is a Christian, a woman of strong convictions and courage. She believes Russia must be stopped, yet her faith wrestles with the question of forgiveness.

"When did Russia become our enemy?" I asked.

She looked deeply into my eyes.

"If you had seen what I have seen, it would be difficult for you to forgive Russia for its indefensible atrocities."

I tried to persuade her not to go. I urged her to get off the bus in Kraków, book herself into a beautiful hotel and return to France, where the weather was milder and life offered some semblance of peace.

By morning, we were sisters.

We looked alike. We could almost have been related. Yet here we were, two women with different perspectives, sharing Polish chocolates in the warmth of a dark bus while a continent slept around us.

Sasha spoke about the soldiers she cared for, the men on the frontline who had become her family.

"They know their lives are in my hands, so they are good to me, even though they themselves are killers."

I asked her what a combat medic does.

"I'm the one that stops the bleeding," she said.

I have not forgotten those words.

Here I was, from the comparatively sheltered life of Ballito, sitting beside a woman who had buried her son and was going back to care for somebody else's.

What do you say to a mother like that? What comfort can you offer when the person who most needed her care is gone?

When we parted, we held each other tightly.

"I'm going to die," she whispered.

"I will pray for you," I replied.

"Goodbye, sister!" she called as I walked away.

And I kept walking, carrying a stranger in my heart.

I do not know where Sasha is as I write this. I do not know what awaits her in Kostiantynivka. I only know that somewhere, a mother is preparing to put herself between the wounded and death, while another mother is praying for her from afar.

So today, I pray for Sasha. For Ukraine. For every medic, every soldier and every family waiting for news they dread.

We live in troubled times. Our governments fail us, corruption flourishes, and ordinary people pay the price for the decisions of the powerful. Perhaps we should all pray a little harder, love a little more generously and stop assuming that peace is something we are guaranteed.

If your children are safe today, hold them a little longer. If your mother is still here, call her. If someone you love is sitting beside you, do not wait for tomorrow to tell them what they mean to you.

Because on a bus travelling through Europe, I met a mother who had lost her son and was going back to save someone else's.

And I understood, for one extraordinary night, that strangers can become family, that grief can cross every border, and that love does not stop at the edge of a battlefield.

Dear God, please let Sasha live.

Let her hands keep stopping the bleeding. Let the men she cares for return to their mothers. And let this brave woman find her way home.