We went for a walk around the mountains. Spent time skimming stones across a beautiful lake, glistening in the cool Spring sunshine. Laughing, joking, playing, spending time as a family. Happiness at its purest.
And then, I looked at the news.
“Families run for cover as airstrikes hit Chernihiv”
“Moment missile hits a block of flats in northern Ukraine’
“Ukrainian mothers resort to giving birth in basements”
How the fuck can you be happy knowing that a couple of thousand miles away, this is happening? How can you have fun, laugh, enjoy yourselves knowing that families are being ripped apart, homes are being destroyed and people – innocent people are dying?
How the fuck can we carry on as normal, knowing that this is happening?
Of course, the sadness, the despair, the heartbreak and the anger that we feel, here in the UK, thousands of miles away from the invasion, is nothing compared to the way that the people there must be feeling. I cannot even begin to understand how they feel. I know one thing though.
They are fucking brave.
Here’s me, sitting in my safe, warm, comfortable home, with my children and my husband, and I’m worrying and moping about what is happening. They are there living it.
I get to turn the TV off and put my phone down and forget it is happening for a while.
But I can’t.
We can’t turn a blind eye to it and pretend it isn’t happening. None of us can. We have to do something.
But what? What can we do? We aren’t the people who can make the decisions. We can’t wave a magic wand and make it all go away. We can’t rid the world of a psychopath, hell-bent on destroying the world.
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.”
Theodore Roosevelt
That is all we can do.
We can talk about it and make sure the information we are sharing is true.
We can donate money and much-needed essentials.
We aren’t living it first-hand. But we don’t have to be in denial of the situation. We can take action, whether that’s through donating money, writing about it, saying prayers – whatever you feel you can do. We can also continue to live our lives, remembering how fragile peace can be, making memories with our families and holding the ones we love a little closer and a little longer.
Ukraine, we are standing with you.
