Flowers for Irene

“If you’rereading this…” – this is the correct way to start this kind of letters, isn’t it?.. When I was buying a T-shirt with a sign “RIDE TILL THE END”, I already knew that I wouldn’t just show it off in this life but would be wearing it as I would be traveling to another world.” Ira herself deliberately wrote this “Letter to the Future” and came up with this project. 9 of January will mark one year since Irusia Gavrysheva has turned into a pterodactyl and has flown away to her Heaven.

It’s hard to believe it and come to terms with it. She’s been so full of energy, so vibrant! Neither her wheelchair, nor her cardiac arrests or a lung ventilator in her lap would stop her from living. Flight on a paratrike, kartracing and a rollercoaster ride, 1st [closest to the stage] fan zone at the rock concerts and a microphone at the patients’ protest actions by the Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers and Ministry of Health. Anability to professionally dissect any medical issue and passionate commitment to her work. Mastery of the written word and a quick wit throughout her life. Ability to love. Deep powerful be lief in God.

How can you tell, how can you contain the entirelife in a couple thousand letters?
“A big part of my life is (was..umm, what tense should I use here?) devoted to charity. I find money for a person to get his/her chance to live. Or at least a chance to feel better. The sechances – they cost money. “Would you sacrifice your morning cup of coffee?” To urge people to asceticism – this is not me. Yet, since we’re talking here about my personal funeral, I think I have the right to insist: believe me, I can live without flowers in my casket (ha ha!). Instead, give what you were going to spend on commemorative flowers to the ones who are still alive. More often than not, dying from a disease isn’t a sudden or instantaneous event. To die with dignity, free of suffering, to stay active till the very end costs money. It takes time and effort. People in my surroundings gave me this life till the very end despite its cost. I did my best, as long as I was able to, to give this kind of life to other patients in our Foundation’s Palliative Program. Because everyone is worthy of leaving this world without pain and suffering.”

Ira knew the true value of every single day. Of every single help action. The value of friendship. And the depth of despair of those who’s been left alone in facing the disease. Somehow, this inequality should have been counterbalanced, and this is how we came up with an idea of the Palliative Program. And we made breathing support one of its main focuses. Patients with tumors, metastases and other lung lesions start experiencing shortness of breath much earlier than actual dying. The oxygen units which we provide to these patients save them from suffocation. A person can live longer, which means, possibly, months and sometimes even years filled with life. If you can breathe, that is. At the moment we have 14 oxygen units on our books and this is a far cry from what we need. There are hundreds of people living around us, fighting for breath.

“They say there’s Heaven. An ideal world free of pain and suffering. This is cool. But I keep thinking – if I get there, what I would be doing? Without medical records, crafty rehabilitation gadgets and “please donate for…”? Without things that have been filling my life for the last 9 years… I think, they’ll find use for me There. As for you, you will stay in this world… Which so desperately needs people helping on each other. Where the only means to survive is to fight the odds shoulder to shoulder. Which is not just about the strong protecting the weak, but about even the weakest one doing a lot for his/her neighbor.

I have run my course:) As for you, it looks like you have lots of work ahead of you”.