Now I know what a miracle is: finding out my mum is alive in Mariupol

‘Now that the city is cut off, the shortages are horrible – electricity, water, gas, the mobile network.’ A destroyed children’s hospital in Mariupol. Photograph: Ukraine Military/Reuters

On Saturday morning, I woke up in my home in Poland to a call from an unknown number. The woman on the line said she had a message from my mother in Mariupol, and my heart stopped beating for a moment: my mum is alive. Knowing this is my new definition of happiness.

For the past seven years I have made sure my mobile ringer is on before going to sleep, a simple rule I follow just in case my mum calls. But since the start of March, there has been no electricity in that city, and I haven’t heard her voice.