By Ronnie Mosley, CapturingGrace.org
Dasha Rybinskaya was only ten years old when social services came and took her and her siblings away.
No one explained it plainly. They were simply told they were being taken somewhere else, somewhere like a hospital. In reality, they were being placed in an orphanage in Berdychiv.
Her family’s story was complicated. There had not been abuse toward the children, she said. In fact, many of her memories from home are surprisingly tender. She remembers time with her brothers and sisters. She remembers that when her mother was home and her father was sober, life could feel good. But four children were too much for a fragile family already straining under poverty, alcohol, and abandonment. Her mother left. Her father could not hold everything together. And so the children were taken.
At first, the orphanage felt like a wound.
For the first half year, Dasha hardly spoke to anyone but her relatives. She sat alone in class. She had no friends. The loss was sharp, even if she learned quickly not to show it.
Then, over time, she adapted, as children often do when they have no other choice.
Photographer and storyteller Ronnie Mosley visited Last Bell for three and a half intense days at the end of March. He conducted several interviews with our clients in order to tell their stories. Discover the story behind Capturing Grace and how the life of Ronnie’s daughter Christina continues to inspire this work at capturinggrace.org/about-us.