Twenty-year-old medical student Esther Thomas cried when she arrived in Jamaica three days before Russia invaded Ukraine last week.

The tears, her mother Keisha Thomas told the Jamaica Observer on Monday, sprang from her realisation that she had left her fellow students in the Eastern European country as war loomed, and the cold, hard fact that her dream of completing her studies to become a doctor had been shattered.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I didn’t want to mess up this opportunity for her,” Thomas told the Observer. “She had only been in Ukraine for three months. We just spend up a bag of money, sent her over there, get her started, and she is finally in med school; and then this happens. It was such an awful situation.”

Esther was studying at VN Karazin Kharviv National University as it was the only tertiary institution that the family could afford, despite being accepted by several others in the United States, all of which offered her half scholarships.

The offers were disappointing, given that the Immaculate Conception High School graduate had earned eight Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination units — six at grade one and two at grade two.

She also has eight grade ones at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate level in one sitting.

The student, who has dreams of becoming a paediatric surgeon, had her application to The University of the West Indies medical programme denied.

However, her desire to realise her chosen profession was met when the opportunity to study in Ukraine presented itself.

Unfortunately, like her Jamaican colleagues, who eventually made it out of the war-torn country on Monday, she is now left wondering how she can rebound.

And that pain is shared by her mother, who, on realising that war was imminent, took the heart-rending decision to get her daughter home.

“She really escaped by the skin of her teeth. She could have been there too!” Thomas said.

“So, when I see people on social media with the insensitive comments about how people stay because of money… it’s not about that! You have to understand people’s circumstances. Nobody gets up and sends their child across the world into a volatile region just because; nobody does that!” Thomas told the Observer in an exclusive interview.

“I was very nervous about this [war] from the beginning. It was at a point where I was talking with her about it for the dates for which she would return for the summer. But then, we noticed we started seeing it in the news quite a bit,” Thomas explained.

The mother said that when news broke that Russia had started edging troops along its border with Ukraine, the discussions were over.

“Hold on, we can’t talk about summer and it sound like you may have to come home this week,” she told Esther.

“I wasn’t about to take any chances. If it was up to me, I would’ve carried her home a lot sooner if she wasn’t hesitant, and I totally understand the hesitancy [as] we struggled to get her into med school,” Thomas told the Observer.

“Give me the chance to make this decision,” Thomas said she begged her daughter, who responded, “Mommy, okay, you decide, because I can’t decide.”

The mother, terrified for her daughter’s safety, pointedly told her, “It’s time fi come a yuh yard.”

Thomas said she called her travel agent and inquired about the earliest flight out of Ukraine. When one was identified she told the agent, “Get her on that plane!”

The day Esther drove out of her hostel, heading to the airport, she called her mother in tears.

“She was bawling. She was leaving her friends behind. One or two persons had already left, but most of her friends were behind,” Thomas recalled.

“Mommy, I left… I left the hostel. I left,” Ester cried, uncontrollably.

Thomas said she couldn’t hold back her tears either. When the call ended, she questioned whether she had acted prematurely, and out of fear. It weighed heavily on her mind that her daughter would resent her.

She said another concern was the fact that while Esther’s residency documents were being processed, the university was in possession of all documentation for the students. In order for the students to leave for home, they would need to request the documents from the school and that, too, would likely be interpreted as a decision to discontinue processing for residency and, indirectly, enrolment.

“The university basically made it clear that any student who chose to leave without there being justifiable cause would have dismissed him or herself from the academic programme of study. In other words, they were risking everything they had worked for up to this point if they did the responsible thing of heading for safety in their home country,” Thomas explained.

“I was doing the right thing, but it didn’t feel right. I felt like I was hurting her. I couldn’t take a chance with her life. I know I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. The priority was her life, but a part of me was wondering if I moved too fast,” she said, noting that family members supported her decision.

On the morning of February 14, Thomas sent Esther her itinerary. But because of the seven-hour time difference, Esther only had time to pack and head out.

When she left Ukraine, she spent two days in Turkey because of flight cancellations. When things were sorted out, she travelled to Panama, where she also spent two days. Subsequently, she landed in Montego Bay on February 20.

“The only thing she came with was her passport. Residency documents get left, CXC, CAPE certificates, everything. Everything the school had was left. I’m still trying to find God’s purpose in all of this. I’m just happy she’s home and she’s safe,” Thomas said.

Three days after arriving back home, they heard about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I knew she was home. I was grateful, I was giving thanks, but I felt like she was still there, because I had now come to know so many of her friends who were there. I was devastated. For the days they were travelling, my daughter was monitoring their every move. She went crazy when she couldn’t hear from them. When she heard from them, we get a little relief. We prayed in-between… it was too much,” Thomas said.

Read Keisha Thomas’s column on Page 15