Deborah Richardson

Absolutely.

The moment the war broke out, I remember very clearly seeing the visions of the tanks surrounding Ukraine.

And I was frantically trying to call him.

And so there was no answer.

And it wasn't until the next day I was driving to work and all of a sudden my phone starts ringing and I pull over and it's Yuri.

And we had not spoken on the phone, even though we'd been in contact, we'd emailed, we'd messaged, we'd seen each other on Facebook.

And that was probably one of the most heartbreaking phone calls I've ever taken in my life.

Sarah was like, he wanted to tell me his entire life story.

in that short time that we had.

We hadn't heard each other's voice before.

And he wanted to tell me everything.

He wanted to tell me his mum had died of cancer, probably due to the Chernobyl disaster.

And all I wanted to know was that he was safe.

And of course, in some ways he was, but four years later, he's still not, if that makes sense.

Yes.

By that stage, he was married and he had a little boy, little Marco, who was only two when we first spoke.

and I just recall for three and a half weeks I wanted to know every single moment of every day that he was okay and I would be jumping online, looking on my phone, looking for the green dot to know that he's been active now, you know, on Facebook or whatever, and then I'd breathe a sigh of relief, okay, he's okay.

But I also cried.

I cried a lot because I felt so helpless sitting on the end of the world and not knowing what to do.

So what idea did you come up with?