Look at Us Tenderly

Life and memory: ruined forests, the scars of war, and the strength of family care. Amid loss and tragedy, tenderness, love, and the resilience of life emerge, passed down through generations. A gentle gaze upon the world shelters and offers hope.

Clouds rest upon the mountains. Beneath them stretches the forest. Oaks, beeches, and chestnuts crown the upper tier. Below, along the streams, boxwoods once wove shady groves. Their pale trunks, dry and brittle, are draped with moss that hangs in long braids from the branches. The boxwood trees are gone—dead.

This is Abkhazia. Ten years ago, an ecological disaster struck here. A moth plague devoured the ancient boxwood groves. Not even a hundredth of the trees could be saved. It will take centuries for the forest to return.

My family lives here. A place that does not appear on most maps of the world. Abkhazia—a disputed land caught between empires. A place that both exists and does not exist. Colonization, forced migrations: times of peace giving way to times of war. The last ended thirty years ago, when more than a hundred thousand people fled their homes. The scars of war remain everywhere.

Is this a place of sorrow? No. Here, life prevails. In the stones overrun by forest, there is something untamed, something freeing—as though every attempt at human intrusion had failed. Violence—relentless, hollow, mechanical—proved powerless.

I look at the women of my family. My mother works in the garden each day. My nieces grow taller. My sisters and I gather together. Joy and sorrow take turns, as they always have. The branch of life puts out green shoots. In the endless cycle of birth, we pass forward the gift once given to us by our first mother Eve: a tender strength, a warm gaze, the grace of shared being. A gentle gaze that shelters, forgives, and pleads for peace.

Inside the clouds, a fine rain begins. The earth softens, loosens — ready again for the garden.