There are major things in life I cannot change. I can't change my life into having a family.
I've never lived in the future; I am not one to make plans for years ahead. Never for a minute I thought "I want to arrive at this goal in five years from now". I am too much of a realistic sensing person to get big ideas on how life should turn out.
But I often feel weird about what has happened to me. Already as an infant, I found it strange that we should have to live up to what is expected from us as grown-up humans in society: getting a house, a mortgage, settling down as soon as possible, to arrive at a bore-out. The image of families all around us complaining about their dull lives horrified me.
I wondered what was expected of me. That is because I felt that I had experienced everything before I was born. Nothing seemed quite new to me. I even started to talk about past events that I'd never witnessed myself when I was an infant.
The strangest of it all has been losing my loved one and sole family member. I don't know any of my other actual relatives; I only knew my mother and my mother only had her mother as her sole relative. I can't tell you how harsh it is to have to suffer the process of knowing you're going to lose your loved one soon, all by yourself, not having other close relatives who love and support you.
I know that I am Russian-Ukrainian with an Asian ancestor, but I don't know where my family resides. I may or may not have a big group of relatives. Our family name was erased and with that our family history. It didn't seem to matter as long as my mother was still here. But since losing her, I wish I had close relatives to turn to.
I am not only the sole survivor of our family in The Netherlands, but also the sole survivor of my siblings who have died before I succeeded to come to life. I barely survived birth myself, as I had to withstand cardiac arrest, a breathing stop and contamination. I lost my twin sibling before this complicated birth.
There are people with our genes, character and quirks out there in Eastern-Europe and the Asian outskirts. If I had known them, I wouldn't be a stranger in another country, living all alone without loved ones. I would be part of a group of many people like me. I'd be totally ordinary, in place, maybe even stereotypical.
I'd speak, write and experience life in my own language. Most of all, I don't doubt that I would feel like I belong, amidst my fellow people with their similar temperament. Recently I have met fellow Slavics. As if there is some kind of recognition, we seem to share temperament, taste and even some habits.
I am residing here in a country I don't actually share a history with, with no one around. I don't have a family home of or someone to turn to amidst hardship. The fate of this next-generation Slavic migrant is being literally alone in the world. I don't pity myself; I am simply not happy. It is not a thing that will change in the future.
I have suffered more than enough from what has happened to us and there is no joy in living without your loved ones. I repel those sayings that one has to learn how to live on and keep going and with that, that one should learn how to find meaning again and be grateful for being here. The magical factor "Everything can turn out for the better in the future" is for fools who need to believe in illusions.
Humans try to make sense. In that, I'm no different. I honestly don't know what to make of it. Sometimes it seems like a sordid joke, to take my loved one from me and leave me at a dead end.
People often ask me for my family and that is reasonable at my stage of life- most people my age have parents who may become grandparents and then will grow to become older. They go on holidays with their families and extended family.
Maybe I wasn't meant to live a life like that of most people. Or is my fate just result of unlucky circumstances?
Whatever it may be, pulling a migrant family apart and erasing their name in order to force assimilation upon them is the worst thing to do. Anyone who engages in this kind of punishment, hurts future generations and deprives them of the opportunity to form close, meaningful connections with their actual relatives.
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My mother died of brain tumors due to an Exon 21-mutation. She underwent surgery in 2023. A massive tumor was removed. She woke up to the news displaying the Ukraine-Russia war and the celebration of Slavic-Orthodox New Year.
She cried when people who resembled her mother were in view. I felt that both my mother and grandmother have known much more about their family history than I have ever known. It was a strange sensation that was going through the room. We both knew we were watching a place where we belong, but those people know nothing about our existence.
I know that my grandmother's surname was erased when she was an infant. She had known her parents for some time, until Dutch unofficial adoptive parents have put her into modern-day slavery. This still happens as of 2024- Slavic migrants are used as modern serfs. Not only does this affect those involved right now- it affects their relatives and future generations as well.
