Deborah Richardson

It's evening.

We're on the side of the road.

I had no contact with Yuri.

eventually he sent some people to help.

And I'm looking at this carload of men thinking, what am I doing?

I'm jumping into a car full of strangers, no clue where I'm going, but we're about to get hit by bombs.

And they took us to a little village.

They were the most incredible people that housed us and fed us and

entertained us for the evening thanked us for being there and of course the truck was still broken and so Yuri drove all the way from Kiev to rescue us and we woke up the next morning on a couple of hours sleep and he looked at me and he said Deb because of all the delays if I don't take you home today you're never going to meet my family and you need to come with me and I was like in that moment there's no doubt I have to go and so next minute I'm driving down to Kiev and

The most incredible moment of my life.

The most incredible moment of my life.

My middle son gave me permission to go.

He was the one that understood that I had to do this.

And he said to a friend when she said, how do you feel about your mum going to Ukraine?

And he goes, you know what?

I've had my mum for 30 years and I've been so blessed to have her.

And he goes...

Yuri is as much her son as we are.

And if this is her mountain to die on, I'm okay with that.

And so I went with my son's permission, with tears rolling down my face when he told me that.