Death of a friend

"Camera?" I said, motioning to my bag and looking at Sasha with pleading eyes.

Sasha turned and translated my request to Brother Jaroslav, the 23-year old monk who was hosting us. After a brief exchange, Sasha turned to me and shook his head.

"He's almost dead, you know?"

I scuttled down the hall after Sasha and Jaroslav[Yaro-slav], as the smiling brother opened a door just 3 rooms down from where I had been sleeping. The silence of a universally recognized stench hit us as we entered the inner room. It was more than just urine or the familiar stink of sweat, this smell was unique to the dying.

Not once had Jaroslav's impervious smile left his face during our three days at Univ Monastery, not once had he frowned or winced with the frustration of our American ways or our terrible Ukrainian. But in that room, as the three of us stood around the bed of Ananina, we looked again into the eyes of this now dying monk and were speechless. Jaroslav's smile was gone.

I remember photographing this monk in September, shortly after I first arrived in Ukraine. During evening prayer, he had waddled into the sanctuary, oblivious to the chanting and the pairs of eyes following him, and sat next to the singers. I knew there weren't any photographs allowed in the sanctuary, but the intricate design of his robe and the black cusp of his hood captivated me. As he sat in a beam of sunlight, clothed in black and surrounded by the wail of Ukrainians worshipping, I saw him as a pillar, an aging foundation of something I was only beginning to understand.

I asked him after Vespers(evening prayer) if I could photograph him, and he agreed. After I snapped a few shots, he thanked me and then kissed my hand. If I had been in America, I would have awkwardly giggled. But I understood what he was communicating, something deeper than the clumsiness of language. Brett told me that in Ukraine, people only kiss the hands of a Bishop.

As Brett, Sasha, Jaroslav and myself stood with Ananina's caretakers last weekend, five months after I first visited Univ, we stared blankly into pale blue eyes that couldn't stare back. The cancer in his lung, they said, had left him so weak he was unable to stand or talk. He stared blankly at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell with short gasps from an open mouth, and it reminded me of the panting of the hamsters I had as a kid.

Jaroslav told me Ananina hadn't eaten anything all month, just water. We all bowed before we went out, and feeling out of place, I forced myself to touch his bed. I knew I couldn't offer him any comfort than what he already had, I knew he was tougher than me. I knew he had left the monastery in his 20s to fight in the war, and when there was no one left to fight, he married and had another life. When his wife died, he came back to the monastery and donated all of his possessions to the monks.

I knew I could offer him nothing as I touched his blanket, searching for his bony ankle in the sheets to show some shallow sense of compassion. I knew it didn't mean anything, and that's what disturbed me most of all. I knew I couldn't pay him the same respect and return the kiss.