THIS FEATURE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2022.   

You never know what life is going to throw at you.

In the fall of 2019, we were living in Newport, Rhode Island, where my husband was on a one-year tour for the US State Department at the Naval War College. We were offered two assignments the following year: one at the US Army Pacific Command in Honolulu, Hawaii and the second at the US Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Most people would take the Hawaii assignment and run. But we are not "most people."

My husband and I have been at this US diplomatic life for nearly 20 years. I blame the travel and transient lifestyle bug on my time in Singapore, where I attended Singapore American School during my high school years from 1993 to 1997. At the time, one of my best friend's dad (shout–out to David Donahue) was a diplomat at US Embassy Singapore, and I thought it was the coolest job in the world. That, coupled with the colorful, exciting life I lived in Singapore in the 1990's—weekend nights at Boat Quay, weekends on Bintan, Interim Semester trips to Borneo, Kenya, Australia, and New Zealand, lazy afternoons at Newton Circus, and IASAS trips to Jakarta, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur—challenged me to reach for a life full of adventure, exploration, and constant change in remote corners of the world.

Fast forward to 2002: I joined the Foreign Service as a US diplomat at the age of 23. I met my now husband, a fellow US diplomat, and completed tours in Mozambique, Venezuela, Sudan, Washington, DC, and Thailand. In 2011, I resigned to stay at home with our growing family, but continued the Foreign Service lifestyle with my husband and went on to assignments in Poland, Rhode Island, and then—you guessed it—Kyiv, Ukraine.

Chided by, well, nearly everyone in our life for choosing borsch over shaved ice, warm winter jackets over barefoot year-round luxury, a city of 4 million people over waterfalls, beaches, and volcanoes, and even questioning the decision myself sometimes on particularly gray, icy days in the middle of Ukraine's long winter, I now realize what a critical, life-altering decision we made without even realizing it. Our time in Ukraine was a rare gift. One that has shaped and will continue to shape our family for years to come. More than any beach, surf lesson, or tropical cocktail ever will.

The whole world has witnessed and read about the bravery and heroism of everyday Ukrainians. We have been some of the lucky few outsiders who had the opportunity, the fortune, to live with the Ukrainians side-by-side, get to know their heart, their strength, their kindness, and their resilience. To understand Ukrainian culture and customs. To learn about their history, their struggle throughout the years, their fight for independence. To visit Ukraine's thousand-year-old monasteries, ornate Orthodox churches, and beautiful parks. To explore its landscape from the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea to the vibrant city
of Lviv, the stunning Carpathian mountains, and the thriving metropolis of Kyiv with its hip cafes, art galleries, and wine bars. To understand what the Ukrainians are fighting for so fiercely, and so proudly.

We spent a year and a half living in Kyiv before we evacuated in late January 2022. The evacuation was abrupt. We left everything behind except for two suitcases apiece. Watching the war play out from afar has been agonizing and traumatic. I reflect on our time there now as so delicate, so bittersweet. It's almost as if it didn't happen. Like it was all a dream. Or that this war is all one long nightmare that we haven't yet woken up from. A piece of my heart was left in Ukraine: in the people we know, in the places we frequented— parks, playgrounds, restaurants, cultural sights, our home. A piece of my kids' hearts was also left there: in friends, teachers, and fellow girl scouts they left behind. In the home they knew and loved. In their rooms, where their things still remain. In Ukrainian friends who joined volunteer battalions, became cooks for the military, or continue school in bomb shelters.

That we had that opportunity to get to know these people and continue to learn from their patriotism, bravery, and resilience: this is the real gift. And now, as we turn our pain and grief over what is happening into activism to help those who are displaced or are fighting for their freedom, our family learns even more from our time in Ukraine. We're on this earth to serve others in the best way we can.