Vasylyna Halushkevych, 75, is a Ukrainian refugee. She left Ukraine in March of 2022 and arrived in North Carolina 21 days later. She now lives with granddaughter, Anna Hatcher, 32, and her family, but struggles with adapting to life as a refugee. Halushkevych did not want to leave Ukraine. “I cannot explain how I decided on leaving and to get evacuated. Just after a few days when it was not going down and it was getting harder and harder and the bombs and rockets were firing more often,” Halushkevych said. Though Halushkevych successfully fled Ukraine, she faces a new set of burdens in rural North Carolina. Isolation, fear for her homeland, and heart issues weigh on Halushkevych, but her relationship with God, Hatcher, and her great-grandson Mikey, 2, keep her moving forward. The idea of never returning to Ukraine brings tears to Halushkevych’s eyes, but she gestures at her grand-daughter and her great-grandson. “They are my legacy.”
Halushkevych walks with Hatcher and Mikey to the convenience store next to the family’s house. The road leading up to their house is lined with signs, alternating between support for Ukraine and support for a local Republican candidate. Halushkevych was asleep when the war started at 4 a.m. in Kiev. Hatcher called her twelve minutes after the first bombs fell. “Granny, the war has started,” she said. “We love you, remember we love you.”
Halushkevych holds a photo of herself as a young woman. She was born in 1947 in Soviet Ukraine. She left her job at a dairy farm to work as a crane operator at 19. She had her two children at 22 and 24. Halushkevych’s apartment was situated near Zhuliany airport in the west of Kiev, one of the first locations target by the Russians. Before she evacuated, Halushkevychcontributed to the war effort by making Molotov cocktails for her neighborhood in the basement of her apartment. “It’s not dangerous if you don’t put any fire in it. Just don’t smoke around it,” Halushkevych said.
Every month Halushkevych gets about $80 as financial aid from her immigration parole status, so Hatcher and her walked to the convenience store to withdraw the cash. She spent her money in August on a meal for the family as a thank you for hosting her. She spent her November money on a back-support device. The trip to the convenience store ATM provides a small amount of financial independence for Halushkevych.
Halushkevych tries to speak with Michelle Ritchie, a houseguest, on a Wednesday morning. Ritchie tries to ask Halushkevych how she is, but Google Translate fails to pick up the audio. Hatcher is the only person Halushkevych knows who can speak Ukrainian, so while trips to the ATM and days spent with Hatcher help ease feelings of loneliness, weekdays can feel isolating.
Mikey, Halushkevych and Hatcher load into the car on a Sunday morning to attend church in Saxapahaw, NC so “God is everything to me,” Halushkevych said, but she can’t understand anything that is said at the sermons here. Hatcher said she makes sure to give her money during the service so that she feels like she is contributing when the donation basket is passed around.
Halushkevych can’t communicate the worry the anxiety and sadness she is feeling on Aug. 24, Ukraine’s day of independence, even though many members of the American Legion Post 6 greet Halushkevych warmly. She and Hatcher were worried that the Russians would be especially aggressive that day after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of possible heightened aggression. The Russians attacked a train station in Chaplyne, a small town in central-eastern Ukraine. 22 people were killed.
Halushkevych, or “granny,” sits with her great-grandchild Mikey on a Wednesday morning. This morning Mikey is too sick for daycare, so Halushkevych watches him as his dad works from home upstairs. While Halushkevych left a life back in Ukraine, she said she treasures the time she gets to spend with her great-grandson. “Anna visited us in Ukraine in 2020 with Mikey,” Halushkevych said. “But when they were leaving I was sure that I would not see Mikey again.”
“Granny” pushes her walker up the final stretch of the driveway on Nov. 9. Ever since her doctor told her she needed to exercise more she has walked the 100 yards to the end of the driveway every morning. Her breathing is heavy but she enjoys the sunshine and fresh air. She is hospitalized on Nov. 10.
An ambulance rushed Halushkevych to Durham County Hospital on Nov. 10, for excessive fluids in her body. “Her heart is playing tricks on her,” Hatcher said. With a child at home and Hatcher and her husband working full-time jobs, Halushkevych spends the majority of the four days in the hospital alone.
Family friends embrace Halushkevych at Mikey’s second birthday party. Although they can’t speak more than a few words to each other, many Halushkevych’s new neighbors care deeply about her and her health.
Halushkevych resumes her daily walks just a week after being released from the hospital. Hatcher’s husband placed a chair in the home’s front lawn for Halushkevych to rest in at the halfway point of her walks. She sits in the sun and occasionally slaps the overzealous puppy Zena as the dog hits her shins with a stick. Though she survived one crisis, she is convinced she will die in the next couple of years. Hatcher says Halushkevych has said that for 10 years.
On the way out of a church service, Halushkevych notices a Ukrainian flag standing in the corner of the cafeteria. She reaches out and runs her hands along it. She said she would like to return to Ukraine, but even if the war ended soon, she likely would not be able to. “I do not know where to go back. The place where I stayed does not exist anymore.”
Vasylyna Halushkevych was sleeping in her Kiev apartment when her granddaughter Anna Hatcher called her from Chapel Hill at 4 a.m.
“Granny, the war started,” Anna said, only 12 minutes after the first bombs fell. “I love you, remember we love you.”
Her mind dizzy, Vasylyna sank down to her bed. She cried, prayed, and then got dressed to stock up on canned foods.
Vasylyna said she delayed evacuating a few days because leaving meant stranding her nation’s people. President Volodymyr Zelensksyy called on civilians to defend their neighborhoods because the military wasn’t enough and had sent out instructions for how to make three different types of makeshift bombs, Anna said.
In those two days before she evacuated, Vasylyna brewed Molotov cocktails in an underground bunker with her 82-year-old friend Ivana.
“It’s not dangerous if you don’t put any fire in it,” Vasylyna says with an eyebrow raised. “Don’t smoke around it.
Vasylyna packed a few sweaters, her heart pills, slippers, and rolled up two arm-length paintings of Jesus surrounded by angels to pack in a bag under her walker. Vasylyna’s son-in-law drove her, her daughter, Svitlana Noskova, and her grand-daughter-in-law, Viktoriia Noskova, from Kiev to the Ukrainian border with Slovakia, a journey of 624 miles spread over seven days.
Her son left them at the border. Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 24 imposed martial law in Ukraine, under which men between the ages 18 and 60 must stay in the country in case they are called to fight.
After Slovakia, the three women flew to Austria, then Belgium, where they stayed at a small hotel for eight days. Belgium was the worst part of the trip, Vasylyna said.
“The food was bad and tasteless, it hurt my stomach. It was different from Ukraine,” she said. “The place we had to stay was full of Muslims and I was afraid. They had their heads covered.”
Anna’s husband, Michael, met the women in Belgium and helped them all book a flight to Mexico after Canada Airlines wouldn’t let them board without visas.
Once in Mexico, the four crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and took a Greyhound bus from Brownsville, Texas to Durham, N.C.
“I was tired. Very tired,” Vasylyna said. “When I finally saw Anna I thought, ‘I am going to fall onto the ground.’”
That night, she arrived at her new home and slept.
For the next four months Vasylyna, Svitlana, and Viktoriia met the Hatchers’ friends at the American Legion Post just five minutes down the road, spent time with Mikey, and kept a close eye on Ukrainian news.
Despite the thousands of dollars the family had spent to get the women to the United States, Svitlana and Viktoriia decided to return to Romania to be closer to the family they left in Ukraine in July, Anna said. Between the two women’s departure in July and Anna’s new job at Toshiba, Vasylyna began to spend quite a bit more time alone as the sun began to spend more time below the horizon.
Now, on a typical Wednesday, Vasylyna wakes up around 8 a.m. and boils water for rooibos tea. She takes a heaping spoonful of honey and stirs it into a small mug, then butters a hot dog bun to go along with it.
Only half of the dining room table is accessible. The other half is covered in singing stuffed animals, diapers and colorful plastic blocks. She rests her head against a whiteboard behind her with phrases such as “I (do not) understand,” and “time to speak English now,” written on it.
Her granddaughter, Anna, left for work around 7 a.m., and her grandson-in-law Michael is upstairs with their child, Mikey. In a few moments, Vasylyna will push herself out of her chair with a heavy “opa,” to get ready to walk down the long driveway. Her heart will work hard, her feet are swollen with fluid, but for now, she just brushes crumbs off the table.
She fled Ukraine nine days after the first bombs fell on Kiev on Feb. 24, 2022. She is safe from the bombs, but language barriers, health scares, and loneliness threaten her mental health every day.
Refugees are already at higher risk for mental health issues like depression, PTSD, anxiety, and substance abuse, but elderly refugees are more likely to suffer from social isolation, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Elderly immigrants face additional challenges, such as financial gaps between native peers and language barriers acutely impact elderly refugees' access to religious services, community gatherings, and necessary health care, according to the World Health Organization.
The road to the Hatcher household alternates between signs for Charles Lopez, a Republican candidate for the North Carolina House of Representatives, and blue and yellow signs that says “I stand with Ukraine.”
On a warm August Saturday, Anna straps Mikey into the backseat of the white Chevy Tahoe as Vasylyna comes out of the back door. She walks with her hands clasped behind her back, and shuffles forward with her swollen feet tucked inside fuzzy socks. Her back is curved like an archer’s bow, threatening to tip over, but she only uses her walker when she is walking further than their football-field length driveway.
The family drives to a church in Saxapahaw, N.C. where Mikey also goes to preschool. Vasylyna makes her way past the basketball court and playground while Anna herds Mikey the same way. Shiny white shingles cover the whole building, and Vasylyna chooses a seat in the second row. Throughout the sermon Vasylyna is a step behind Anna and the rest of the congregation as she stands and sits, bends her head in prayer and says “amen.”
God is everything to her, but Vasylyna doesn’t speak any English, aside from “thank you,” “yes,” and “no.” She said the churches in North Carolina look like somebody's house. Churches in Ukraine have gold domes with intricate designs inside, full of icons like the two she brought with her from her Kiev apartment.
On the way out, through the church preschool’s cafeteria, Vasylyna notices a blue and yellow flag, with words of support written on it. She runs her hands through the fabric, and then pushes through the double doors back into the parking lot.
Early on the typical Wednesday morning, a woman, Michelle Ritchie, who is renting the family’s extra bedroom, comes into the kitchen. She greets Vasylyna by clasping her hands and points to her necklace, a cross. Michelle pulls her own out from under her shirt.
A cleaning technician for a retirement home, Michelle looks down at Vasylyna’s feet and says “those feet are swollen. I’m worried about your heart,” but Vasylyna can’t understand.
Swollen feet can be a sign of deep-vein thrombosis or heart failure. A weaker heart can’t pump blood as effectively, so gravity pulls it towards the feet.
The next day, around 3 p.m. Vasylyna feels terrible, so Michael takes her into a clinic in Durham. The clinicians there call the ambulance to transfer her to Durham County Hospital for fluid accumulation.
Vasylyna said “I thought I was going to die.”
The hospital stabilizes her, but both Michael and Anna have to work, so she spends most of her four nights there alone. The nurses come in to check her vital signs and take her food tray and leave. A yellow band on her wrist labels her as a fall risk. Her room is bare. One of her sweaters is tucked into the corner, and she has her fluffy socks and slippers from home, but the only decorations are the shadows the IV tubes paint on the wall.
Anna picks her up from the hospital on November 14. By the weekend, there is no sign she was ever reached a critical condition. Her back is still bent, her feet still swollen, but she brushes off any words of consolation.
“I don’t fear death. If I am here it is because God says I should still be here.”
That Saturday, Anna bundles Mikey up as he tries to wiggle away. Vasylyna croons “Mikey, Mikey,” in a high-pitched voice as she hands Anna his winter hat. If Vasylyna had died last week, Mikey would have been the one she prayed for as she left.
“How do you describe a relationship with a toddler?” she asks. “He is my buddy, he is my legacy.”
That afternoon, the trio walk down the driveway. Granny hunches over her walker, but lifts it easily over potholes. She waits outside the convenience store in the sun while Anna gets Mountain Dew and pizza from inside. On the way back, Michael is burning leaves and sticks to clear the yard. Vasylyna leans over further and starts rummaging through the foliage. She picks up a log as long and thick as her arm and tosses it into the fire.
She leads Mikey back towards the house to the makeshift greenhouse and crouches through the green plastic flap. When she sees her plants, she throws her arms out in frustration. The leaves on her avocado plants are brown and dry, but she sends Anna to get a bucket of water anyways.
She dips a Tupperware container into the water and shows Mikey, bundled up in a thick green jacket, how to water the plants.