Ben and Andrea Holley

Victoria (34) Vitaly (44), Valeria (8), and Grandmother Lydia (68)

Every Ukrainian will never forget the morning of February 24. We planned to take our child to kindergarten and go to work, but we woke up to loud explosions that we had never heard before and immediately understood that trouble had come. Since our family lives near the border, we were among the first to feel and see the beginning of the war with our own eyes. It was the last night when we slept in our house, in our warm beds. We had to equip the basement, because we spent day and night there. Our daughter was very scared, so she took her cat with her to the basement to fall asleep more peacefully. The light and communication disappeared, food was quickly running out, but the hope that the war was about to end did not leave us.

The day when our house was gone, we now we perceive it as a second birthday. When the shelling began, people died in the village. When our house was hit, our family miraculously survived. The fire broke out immediately after the hit. I will never forget how my daughter screamed at that moment: “What did they do to our house, where will we live.” We were planning to build her dream room before the war started. After these events, our daughter began to stutter, it took 2 years to overcome this problem. Now our family is separated because there is nowhere to return. Our daughter still dreams of her own room with a picture of a dinosaur.