The maple trees at the park across the street are turning crimson. I noticed it last week while walking the dog, and my heart thrilled with excitement. I love seasons. There are only two seasons in Southern California, and none in Hawaii, so I never got to experience this aspect of God’s creation while growing up. The first time I ever understood the magic of spring was in March 2000, when I was living in Vichy, France.
It felt like I’d stepped into another dimension.
The moment is etched in my memory. I was walking on the high school campus where I lived and worked, and the world felt different. It was like those movies where everything is black and white until a certain point, then suddenly color floods the screen. I hadn’t noticed how gray and nondescript the world had been for the past three months until spring arrived to awaken my senses.
The change was so dramatic that I couldn’t immediately identify what had happened. It felt like I’d stepped into another dimension. The realm of spring. I swiveled my head back and forth as I walked, taking everything in.
The sun was shining brightly, dazzling my winter-dulled eyes. I resisted the urge to squint. The grass was so glossy and vibrant, it nearly sparkled in the light. Colorful flowers had appeared here and there, seemingly overnight. The winter’s long silence was broken by the chirping and trilling of a myriad of birds and the busy buzzing of insects. Even the pavement had come alive—scores of curious black beetles with large red markings scurried to and fro. And there was a new color. It seemed to float in the air, concentrated around the bare branches of the trees, a mist of the most delicate green I’d ever seen.
Intrigued, I walked across the living carpet of grass to investigate the nearest tree. It was covered with tender leaf buds and a few tiny new leaves, barely unfurled, nearly translucent in their freshness. Up close, each was perfect in form, but so small that from a distance they created the illusion of color without substance.
Ever since that magical day, I have looked forward to the coming of spring each year.
As I resumed my walk, marveling at this new discovery, I sensed that something else was different too, but I couldn’t figure out what. Then I noticed my shadow dancing down the path before me. I hadn’t missed it during the endlessly overcast days of winter, but when it returned, I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen it for three months!
Ever since that magical day, I have looked forward to the coming of spring each year. Luckily for me, I only had two springs back in Southern California before I moved to Ukraine in February 2003. Ukraine’s seasons are even more distinct than those of central France, because Ukrainian winters are snowy. I adore snow and always celebrated the first snowfall of the season with excited exclamations as I dashed around the apartment to share the news with every member of the family.
During the nineteen years that I was privileged to live in Ukraine, I came to recognize and celebrate many signs of the changing seasons. One of my favorite was the chestnut tree. Kyiv has so many chestnut trees that a chestnut leaf is the official symbol of the city. It was even etched on the green plastic tokens we used to have to buy to ride the subway. Now everything has been modernized, and you just tap with your phone to enter the subway. It’s much more convenient, but sometimes I miss the green tokens with the chestnut leaf.
Every year I would track the changing seasons with the chestnut trees. When I first encountered them on a summer visit to Ukraine before I got married, they were covered in large, five-fingered leaf clusters. Their deep green canopy provided welcome shade for people strolling along Kyiv’s boulevards.
When I returned as a new bride, the chestnut trees were bare, awaiting their transformation. Spring brought delicate, new leaves with their translucent green, and a few weeks later, stalks of buds that erupted into conical mounds of pink-tinged, white blossoms, like miniature, snowy Christmas trees perched on the branches. The flowers faded and fell, and the leaves thickened and darkened. Then, one day I noticed green, spiny balls hidden among the foliage. As autumn’s chill filled the air, they fell to the ground, splitting open to reveal shiny brown chestnuts. Collecting them provided the children with endless fun. Soon after, the chestnut leaves turned yellow and fell as well, and the trees entered their winter sleep again.
My eyes are opened, and I’m taking in the beauty of the changing seasons in our new city.
I miss the chestnut trees. But now I have the maple trees. I first noticed them a year ago. I was stunned. I knew maples turned red in the fall, but I’d never seen them before. Not really. The color was a living flame, and it warmed me on that chilly morning. I must have passed them dozens of times during the previous two autumns that we’d lived in Budapest. How had I never noticed them?
Even though I knew the answer, it was hard to believe grief and trauma had locked me in so completely that I’d been blind to this glory. But now my eyes are opened, and I’m taking in the beauty of the changing seasons in our new city. It’s a victory in the long process of learning to thrive again.
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Today they bombed the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine, Okhmadyt, a state-of-the-art facility known even beyond the borders of this country.
I say “this country,” because I’m writing from Ukraine. We arrived here in Ternopil last night with our three youngest kids. The power was off—a scheduled blackout, a result of Russia’s relentless attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. We put the kids to bed by flashlight. Before retiring, I checked the official Telegram channel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a nightly habit when we are here.
In almost two and a half years of war, Ternopil has only been hit three times, but the air-raid sirens go off routinely. In this Western Ukrainian city, many alerts (most?) are triggered by the takeoff of Russian aircraft capable of launching long-range missiles. According to my brother-in-law who lives here, these types of alerts are not really a cause for concern in Ternopil. Most locals ignore them.
However, the official Telegram channel sometimes predicts real threats before the sirens sound—which is why I consult it as part of my bedtime routine. When I went to bed last night after 1:00 a.m., it said Russian missiles were expected to enter Ukrainian airspace after 2:00 a.m. The post concluded: Do not ignore the sirens. Take shelter.
The sirens awakened me shortly before 3:00 a.m.
My first feeling was urgency. I needed to do something—quickly. But what? My thoughts were sluggish, the gears of my mind still clogged with sleep.
Those are sirens.
Got to get everyone into the hallway.
George is still sleeping.
Need to wake him.
“George!”
“Wha—?” he mumbled.
“C’mon!”
“Okay.” He didn’t move.
“George!”
“What?”
“Get up!”
“Huh?”
“Sirens—c’mon!”
“Oh, I was . . . um, I was trying to . . .” He shook himself. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Kitchen. Balcony. Mattress. Hallway.” My thoughts were rattling around in my head.
“Huh?”
I tried again. “Mattress on the kitchen balcony. Get it and bring it to the hallway.”
I need to get the kids.
Wait, I should check to see what’s triggering the siren.
No, I should get the kids first, then check.
No, maybe it’s not worth disturbing them.
Where’s my phone?
No. Kids first, check second.
The kids had all asked to make beds on the floor with blankets—that way, in the event of an air-raid alert, I could simply pull them into the hallway without having to wake them. Soon I had all of us crowded into the short section of hallway where the walls were unbroken by doorways. Ukrainians call this the “two-wall rule,” the goal being to have two walls between you and any potential point of impact. After twenty-eight months of living with frequent air-raid alerts, for the most part, no one I know bothers to go to the underground shelters anymore. It’s too disruptive to your sleep and your daily routine.
George went back to sleep almost immediately, but between him and our eleven-year-old, there wasn’t enough room for me to lie down on the twin mattress we’d placed on the hallway floor. That was okay, because I’ve never been able to sleep during an air alert. The sirens only sound for a minute or so, but I can’t relax until they announce the all-clear. Instead of sleeping, I monitored the Air Force Telegram channel, tracking the progress of the rockets heading towards various parts of Ukraine. None were coming our direction.
The all-clear sounded shortly before 4 a.m. George and I went back to bed, leaving the kids sleeping in the hallway. I snuggled under the covers, allowing my exhaustion to immobilize me. Sleep would claim me any minute.
But it didn’t.
When the sirens started again at 7:20 a.m., I had the impression of not having slept at all, except for a short spell of fitful dozing. This alert was triggered by the takeoff of Russian military aircraft. It lasted less than thirty minutes. I contemplated the psychological impact of Russia’s tactics. Disrupt the nightly sleep of an entire nation with deadly attacks, then heckle them throughout the day with threats and posturing.
George and the kids left to meet people for breakfast. Dizzy with fatigue, I opted to stay behind. Surely now I would sleep.
I was just dozing off when the sirens started again at 9:48 a.m. I moaned.
I should move to the hallway.
It’s probably nothing serious.
I should move.
Not yet.
Too tired . . .
I forced one eye open and checked the Air Force Telegram channel. This wasn’t threats and posturing. There were rockets in the air above Ukraine again! They were headed all over the place. Thankfully, none were coming our way.
I noted activity on the group chat for our former church-planting team. The war scattered us, but we still maintain contact. Three of them are in Kyiv right now. They reported loud explosions and plumes of smoke rising from multiple locations across the city.
The images are heart-rending.
In Ternopil, the air alert was cancelled at 11:36 a.m.
Then the reports started coming in. Over forty missiles hit six different cities. The targets were apartment buildings, civilian infrastructure, and a children’s hospital.
The images are heart-rending. A woman comforting a bloodied child. Bald children sitting in chairs along the edge of a parking lot, still attached to their wheeled chemo machines. In one video, lines of people pass chunks of rubble hand to hand, bucket-brigade style, to clear a massive mound and reach survivors. Doctors in blood-soaked scrubs work frantically beside normal people who arrived to help before official rescue workers could make it to the scene.
Pray for an end to this war.
A few hours later, while these efforts are still underway, they hit another Kyiv hospital.
I have no words left to tell you how I feel.
Pray for Ukraine.
Pray for an end to this war.
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I captured this reflection of the sky in a dirty mud puddle by the side of the road in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine. It’s a fitting metaphor for this post.
One week ago I finished the second draft of my memoir Finding Home Again. It’s an intimate telling of the experience of being displaced by war. It’s not about war, per se, but rather the emotions that result when you’re torn away from home with little notice. It’s about the struggle to rebuild your life elsewhere, about finding the will to keep going, to make things work, to begin to live again. It’s about deciding to thrive, not just survive.
I wrote the epilogue in December 2023. It’s a poignant reflection on the past with a hope-filled contemplation of the future. It feels complete and satisfying. The loose ends are neatly tied up, and the reader can close the book with a sigh of contentment (I hope). But life isn’t so neat. It defies the tidy boundaries that storytelling demands.
I just returned to Budapest from a trip to the United States. On my outbound journey, I transited through London. As I walked from my arrival gate towards the terminal, there were a series of advertising messages posted on the wall of the corridor. I couldn’t help reading them, because I’m a compulsive reader. The words on one literally stopped me in my tracks, and I took the picture above.
George’s alarm went off at 6:30 am. He roused himself from his bed on the floor in the open kitchen area. The apartment was dark and quiet. He quickly gathered his few belongings and put them back in his backpack. He visited the bathroom and combed his hair. Breakfast and coffee were not on the agenda, and he was soon ready to leave.
No Man’s Land, Dzvinkove Border Crossing, Ukraine February 25, 2022, 6:00 pm
The sun went down on us as we waited to cross the Hungarian border. The sky slowly faded to black, and still the single-file line of cars stretched far in front of us. Eventually we reached a place where we could see the Hungarian checkpoint. It looked so close, but we knew that it could still take hours to reach it. Even though it was now in sight, I was reluctant to leave the cozy atmosphere of the van to go stand in line with the other people crossing on foot. But eventually I could put it off no longer. We knew that our ride was in position on the other side, and by calling and watching to see who answered a phone and began talking, we were even able to identify our driver and his van. I gathered my kids and grabbed a blanket or two to ward off the cold, and we walked to the end of the pedestrian line. Like the line of cars, it was much longer and moving much slower than its counterpart on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Jon’s words provided relief from the torment of the night. I welcomed the chance for action and something to distract me from all my worries. How quickly could I gather our few belongings and dress the kids so we could leave the scene of my waking nightmare? It shouldn’t take long.
Ternopil, Ukraine February 24, 2022, a little after 12 noon
That first day of the full-scale Russian invasion was one of contradictory extremes for us. The kids and I spent the first half of the day mostly alone in a basement, sheltering in place because of repeated air raid sirens in the morning. Then, shortly after noon, one of my brothers-in-law Jon came and found us. He was accompanied by a good friend, the Ukrainian pastor of the church that my husband and I had planted in this city fourteen years earlier. No words were necessary or even possible. We just held each other, tears in our eyes, drawing comfort from each other’s presence.
The night before the start of the war, George and the seven other members of our team had met and prayed and decided that if Russia invaded, they would all evacuate from Kyiv. Early the next morning, when the sounds of explosions jolted everyone from sleep, they all gathered at our apartment. At a time like that, you want to be with other people, and our apartment had a private basement to serve as a bomb shelter plus stores of non-perishable food and water that I had been gathering for weeks.
Ukraine has many beautiful churches, and this one, St. Andrew’s in Kyiv, is my favorite.
We meet lots of refugees from Ukraine here in Budapest. It’s easy. All you have to do is go to a park and listen for people speaking Ukrainian or Russian. Then you ask them where they’re from and how they ended up in Budapest. People are desperate to tell their refugee stories. They often start with the morning of February 24, 2022, with the moment they realized war had started.
This is my story, but to tell it properly, I have to go back to the moment when I first started to take the threat of invasion seriously.
