I was getting ready for work in the early morning of the 24th, when I got a text: no public transportation. We are close to Belarus, and we were among the first to be hit.
Air raids started immediately; lines formed at the grocery stores, then there were water shortages, and the electricity was cut off. My father is on crutches to, and my mom uses a cane. In the first few days I stood in line at the pharmacy and managed to buy some blood pressure medications for my parents. And then I got a phone call from Hesed: I went there by bicycle (I would not have gotten there otherwise), and they gave me medications and adult diapers, everything.
We still had some cereal onions, and apples: everything was stored outside the window, since the fridge wasn’t working at that point. I would buy some sort of frozen sprats, thawed the little icicles and fried them up coated in flour. It’s good enough: especially when you are nervous, you don’t really want to eat. There were no eggs at all, and we occasionally baked some bread. It worked out: we survived; there were always potatoes at hand, from them alone, you can make 20 dishes.
It was good that we still had gas. We turned on the burners and the space was heated. We would boil the water, pour it into plastic bottles and take it to bed with us. We put on two pairs of socks, and sweatpants — and still woke up from the cold.