“It is so bitter to see your body dying gradually. I understand everything, my brain works, but everything else does not. I mourn myself, and they scold me, they say that I should not do that, they say that I should not lose hope … hope for what? My legs were paralyzed, my arms were paralyzed, now my voice is being paralyzed. Sometimes I can’t speak at all. I want to explain something with my eyes, but they don’t understand me. I call it life in hell! And I’m still young, I’m only 45 years old. Eighteen months ago, I used to go to work, I was so cheerful. I dreamed of living up to a hundred years! And after they told me my diagnosis – multiple sclerosis – my thoughts are only about death.”

Jilda: I was so afraid of this – I didn’t want to believe … They said that Luka’s condition would worsen over the years, but I believed in a miracle! I thought – what if everything would go differently for Luka, not like the others? I thought, what if the monster that lives in his head would stop developing and leave my son alone? But he started having headaches and seizures recently.

“There is such a Georgian proverb where one dead person asks the second to bring him to the grave – this is about me and my wife,” Akaki says and looks sadly at Dali. They cut off her leg due to diabetes, she is blind and feels unwell, and Akaki had an open heart surgery – bypass surgery after a heart attack, and his leg is broken. They operated on his leg two times, but his bone has not healed yet. They did not take the risk to operate on for the third time – they said his heart could not stand it. He barely hobbles on crutches, and his wife moves on a wheelchair, but she doesn’t even know where she can roll – she doesn’t see anything. They have no one but each other, and it’s hard to say which one of them suffers more.

When there is no money even to buy bread, Iuza takes the most valuable thing he has – The Order of Honor – and looks at it with annoyance. What if you sell it? For how many days there will be money to buy bread or medications? But people like Iuza don’t sell the honor. “There are things, that are not for sale. And since they are not for sale, then they are no longer things – but the meaning of life,” – says Iuza.

Otar: If she dies – I will follow her; if I die – she will not be able to live even a single day without me. That’s it. We barely live out our days, we keep each other afloat. I’d love to die, but I can’t leave her alone – so, I endure pain and all the suffering. I promised her 40 years ago that I would be with her in sorrow and joy, I would cherish her. And I keep my word.

For Keti, Mate, Anastasia and 2-year-old Mariam, their dearest mother is their grandmother. Grandma is the most beloved person in the whole universe. “I would give my life so that the children were raised by their mother. Children need mother’s warmth. But what to do – they are afraid even to remember her, they follow me like chicks, when one of them hugs me, the rest run up to me too. Baby Mariam is in my arms all the time. The worst thing is – when a person is alive, but he does not exist anymore,” the grandmother of the children – Ketino – says, holding back her tears.