Part of a letter from my Russian friend in exile.

"...I talk regularly with my father in Zaporizhia [Ukraine]  and he surprises me with his calm and dogged attitude in the middle of chaos. 

The last time we talked he told me that in his life he did everything as supposed to be done -
he built a house, planted an orchard and raised a son (my half-brother). 

His village was occupied [by the Russians] and the house was lost,
the orchard was abandoned, destroyed, and his son was killed. 

And inside the church that he helped to build, they made a morgue for dead Russian soldiers. But he's taking it quite philosophically :

'I had everything and at the end of life I have nothing'."