I woke with a jolt in my heart at 4am. I sat up in bed, my breathing shallow and erratic. I knew something was deeply wrong.
My partner, with whom I’d been living with in the beautiful western Ukrainian city of Lviv, checked his phone for the latest news. “Mariupol is being hit” Twitter told him.
My gut turned over.
Mariupol was far enough from where we were that we weren’t in imminent danger, but the war I’d so desperately hoped would never begin had started.
We’d spent the past seven months in Ukraine having the time of our lives, filling our days with walks in the local parks, playing in the snow, eating varenyk after varenyk (a delicious Ukrainian style dumpling).
It was a poignant time for me. I was able to connect to my deep Ukrainian heritage, which had always felt so distant from my Australian upbringing.
After many childhood years of desperately wishing I was an “Aussie” when people asked my background, and people finding it difficult to pronounce my surname, finally, being in a place that was indigenous to my ancestors was deeply healing.
It was when we started seeing reports of Kyiv being hit by missiles that we made the decision to flee.
With a bag and passport in hand I ran into the street, waving down an Uber. My heart was thumping, praying I didn’t hear any loud bangs.
We tried to call my family in Lviv, who had young children, to urge them to flee with us but they were fast asleep. I cried for them and all the other children still sleeping in Ukraine.
My heart, already pounding now, began to break.
Our Uber driver, a man with young kids, took us on the one-hour drive to the Polish border.
I looked out the rear window, the view blurry and distorted by the tears in my eyes. I desperately scanned the horizon for orange glows or flames in the direction of where my family slept.
As we reached the Polish border and waited in the line to cross the border by foot, I took a video on my phone.
It was of the sun rising, the birds chirping, and the barbed wire of the border fence. My heart struggled to comprehend how the sun could rise on what seemed like such an ugly day.
I grieve for all the people who have lost their lives in this war. Physically, of course, but also emotionally, spiritually and materially. For millions of people to have been displaced and killed at the hands of a maniacal man is a cruel reality which even months later, I cannot understand.
My chest often aches when I watch the latest news about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saddened we as humans haven’t learnt more from the past.
I’m lucky, my family is all safe, either within or outside Ukraine.
And as each day of the war continues, my heartfelt admiration for the Ukrainian people, the depth of their courage, resilience and ingenuity multiplies.