In a quiet Ukrainian village nestled between golden fields and gathering shadows, the echoes of war reach those left behind. Three families, each with a story of love, hardship, loyalty and strength, find themselves on a path borne of necessity.
The Sunflower Widows explores the silent suffering of women whose lives are forever changed, not on the battlefield, but in the homes and lives once shared.
Kathryna never knew her father. He died a hero in World War II. Now, as war returns, Kathryna faces a new generation of grief and discovers a quiet calling.
Determined not to let others suffer in silence, she begins with a simple gesture: a cup of tea, a quiet conversation, and an open door.
Her home becomes a quiet refuge for Yulia, a young nurse and newlywed. For Ana, the resilient wife who loved through war. And for Natalia, a mother and partner who returned from Berlin to contribute.
The Sunflower Widows is a soul-stirring tribute to love, strength, and the unbreakable bonds between women. Inspired by true events, it stands as a powerful testament to love that endures, grief that unites, and the strength that rises when everything else falls away.
In a quiet Ukrainian village nestled between golden fields and gathering shadows, the echoes of war reach those left behind. Three families, each with a story of love, hardship, loyalty and strength, find themselves on a path borne of necessity.
The Sunflower Widows explores the silent suffering of women whose lives are forever changed, not on the battlefield, but in the homes and lives once shared.
Kathryna never knew her father. He died a hero in World War II. Now, as war returns, Kathryna faces a new generation of grief and discovers a quiet calling.
Determined not to let others suffer in silence, she begins with a simple gesture: a cup of tea, a quiet conversation, and an open door.
Her home becomes a quiet refuge for Yulia, a young nurse and newlywed. For Ana, the resilient wife who loved through war. And for Natalia, a mother and partner who returned from Berlin to contribute.
The Sunflower Widows is a soul-stirring tribute to love, strength, and the unbreakable bonds between women. Inspired by true events, it stands as a powerful testament to love that endures, grief that unites, and the strength that rises when everything else falls away.
“It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
The driver hunched his shoulders and balled his hands deep in his pockets as he shivered and stared at the mud covering his boots. His body bounced in a simple rhythm which shifted his weight slightly and the boots made slurping sounds in the earthen waste. A storm had moved into the Donbas region from the west bringing a drenching rain and a dreariness that was hard to shake.
Relentless, he thought to himself.
The distant sound of machine gun fire and the rumble of tanks firing on tanks and the harrowing sounds of steel on steel made the driver twitch and shudder.
His hood was now high and over his head and tucked over his face to create shelter as the lighter in his hand sparked in defiance of the lashing weather until the flame broke free and kissed the end of his cigarette. He placed the filter between his lips and his shoulders rose and his stomach shrank as he sucked hard. He wiggled his fingers which were wrapped around the pack of smokes and shook the cardboard box to determine its weight. The unused sticks rattled inside signaling empty space and he exhaled a plume of white poison which met the streaking chalk marks of rain before floating away.
Damn, almost two packs today, he scolded himself.
The diesel fumes from the van painted a scene of blue smoke and the circular click of the engine joined the ambient patter of the storm. Coming toward him were four soldiers and his eyes locked on them moving through the muddy field. They carried pine boxes long enough and wide enough to hold the remains of grown men. The slopping and the splashing of combat boots came and went seven times until the van was loaded for its next delivery.
The fidgety, chain-smoking driver was interrupted by an approaching soldier.
“That’s it for now,” the captain said, shoving a folder covered in plastic into the man’s chest. “See you again in a few hours.”
The driver met the soldier’s eyes and his head moved and his lips did not. He watched the soldier retreat to the canvas tent lit by portable lights. The flap that doubled as a door shielded prying eyes from interior. He snapped his head around at sounds in the distance: urgent shouting that was answered by the occasional scream.
“This place is a house of horrors,” he whispered to no one.
The storm turned his jacket into a snare drum—ratta-tat-tat ratta-tat-tat—and he pulled hard on his feet to free himself from the mud. He stepped around the back of the van and used his index finger to silently count the boxes one final time before slamming the double doors shut in what was a final battlefield fade-to-black for those inside.
His body quaked and quivered as he sat in the front seat. He flicked his spent cigarette through the cracked window and grabbed a rag from the console and wiped his face. The cabin light bled enough for him to read the addresses in the folder.
Seven KIA. Two villages.
His eyelids hung heavy and he let them lean shut for a moment. He saw a vision of his younger brother, and quietly hoped he would survive the onslaught, wherever he was stationed.
With a new cigarette dangling from his lips he pressed the accelerator and the worn tires spun wildly to find their grip and the solemn trip—his first on this shift—began with the van rocking side to side and the rear fishtailing through the makeshift camp until he found the paved road that would lead to a new normal for grieving families of the fallen sons of Ukraine.
Two hours later under blue-grey clouds the van pulled into the first village and splashed through the streets, its headlights piercing the downpour creating a yellow haze as it neared the church in the center of town.
Around the back of the reverent building, where weeds were growing taller and a small, cracked drive led to a single door, the driver jumped out and shielded himself from the relentless downpour by pulling his jacket over his head. He knocked three times and was met by a priest on the other side. They spoke no words for none were required. Each knew why the other was there.
A man who was not the priest emerged in a rain slicker and boots and helped the driver wheel the simple pine boxes inside on a stretcher-type apparatus. Three came off the back and four remained inside, destined for the next village.
The dignified exchange ended and the driver stepped through the yellow haze and the pouring rain to the van whose windscreen wipers were swinging wildly from left to right and he looked in the cargo bay to confirm four pine boxes remained before retreating into the shadows of the streets that would lead him toward the next grim delivery.
Spoilers: War brings many victims not just those who were killed but in the survivors especially those who have lost loved ones during war. For the friends and family members, the loss brings long term grief and sorrow. Even when the reasons to go into war are understandable, it still brings violence, death, and heartache. Sometimes the only things that a survivor can do is continue and find positive means of survival. One of the ways is to form a community of those who have had similar experiences so they can share their loss together. That's what happens to the women in Matthew Fults’ novel, The Sunflower Widows.
The Sunflower Widows tells the story of four women from a small Ukrainian village who have lost husbands and other loved ones in battle, particularly during the recent Russo-Ukrainian War. They meet at the home of Kathryna, an elderly woman who is familiar with death and grief. She befriends three younger widows, Yulia, a newlywed, Ana, a middle aged wife of a career soldier, and Natalia, a suddenly single mother. They form a network of support, understanding, and love.
The women's stories are individually told through flashbacks that focus on their lives and relationships before the war then moves to the present as they form a tight bond of sisterhood that encourages laughter, tears, empathy, and understanding. They are fascinating characters coming into their own separate lives before they come together as a group.
Their past stories are moving, detailed, emotional, and sometimes even funny. For example, Yulia and her husband Maksym have a meet-cute when she and her female friends have a flirting match with him and his male friends. In their one and one battle of words, they both emerge as the winners because they agree to date. The date blossoms into a relationship that evolves into a happy marriage for a time.
The flashbacks feature memories that become precious because they are gone. Even the most mundane of activities carry significance that they didn’t before. Ana's grief is haunted by conversations that were started but never finished about how hers and Borys' future particularly whether they wanted or didn't want children.
Their past memories parallel with their new normal in which they have to live without their loved ones. Natalia tries to put up a brave front for her infant son while her world falls apart around her as she mourns her husband. Dmytro's death. Her conflicts in being present for her son while wanting to withdraw into herself and her memories are understandable and relatable especially by those who have experienced similar loss.
They don’t even have to be widows to understand the pain that these women go through. Kathryna herself was unmarried but is no stranger to death. As a child, her father was killed in WWII before she had the chance to really know him. She empathizes with these women because her mother went through the same process.
Because the characters are at different stages in life, the deaths feel like an interruption of what would be a normal process of one life transition to another. Yulia wanted to have a longer marriage to Maksym than the one that ended early and abruptly. Ana was looking forward to Borys’s retirement and spending her twilight years with him. Natalia now has a child, Zdeno, who will grow up never knowing his father, Dmytro. Putin robbed them all of those chances when his Russian Army invaded their country.
The cause of the war is to fight against the invaders and for Ukraine to maintain its independent sovereignty. The four women understand that and want to live in a country free of invaders and Russian authority disrupting their cities, homes, routines, and daily lives. But agreeing with the cause doesn’t make the grief any less bearable and their husbands any less missed. This acknowledgement of courage and sacrifice can be seen when Kathryna lays out two more chairs when she meets the other three women. The reason that she sets the two empty chairs is because “there will always be widows.”
The Sunflower Widows has a strong theme of community and togetherness. In their mutual grief, the four women are there for each other. They listen to each other’s stories offering tea and conversation. The other women hold and sit for Zdeno becoming honorary aunts. They encourage each other to change jobs and relocate if they have to. They wipe away one another’s tears and wrap their arms around each other with loving embraces.
In collaborating and communicating with each other and drawing other mourners in, The Sunflower Widows learn that while grief never really goes away, there can always be something positive found in sharing it with and helping others.