As the train carries me through the heart of Europe, I watch the landscape transform into scenes of preparation and celebration. In Vienna and countless other cities, Christmas markets are opening their doors—wooden stalls adorned with lights, the scent of mulled wine and roasted chestnuts promising warmth against the winter cold. Children will soon run between these stalls, their laughter echoing off cobblestones worn smooth by centuries of footsteps.
I ride in peace. The train moves smoothly along tracks that have known both war and reconstruction. And yet, as I sit in this peaceful carriage, my birth place—the place where I first learned to walk, to speak, to dream—is at war.
This contrast is not lost on me. It sits heavy in my chest as the European countryside glides past my window. These peaceful moments exist because others—then and now—chose to fight. They chose to stand when standing meant sacrifice. They chose to hold the torch high, even when their hands grew weary.
It is not easy to write these reflections. I know this. Words on a page do not stop missiles. Poetry does not deflect drones. Remembrance ceremonies, however moving, do not end wars. And yet—and yet—we must remember. Because the alternative to fighting for what matters is accepting a world where children learn the sounds of warfare instead of Christmas carols, where they can identify drone models instead of reindeer names.
We fight—each in our own way, in our own places—so that future generations will not have to. This is not a small goal. It is perhaps the most important goal we can hold. We endure the difficulty, carry the weight, bear witness to the challenges, because somewhere ahead lies a world where Christmas markets can be just Christmas (Holiday) markets, where children can be children, where peace is not a privilege but a given.
As the train continues its journey through lands once torn by the very wars we commemorate on November 11, I think of Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s words, echoing across time and languages:
“Take up our quarrel with the foe: / To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high.”
“Ідіть у бій, забувши страх, / Нам світоч випав з рук, відтак — / Вам підіймати цей тягар!”
The torch has been passed. Not just once, but again and again, generation to generation. Today, it burns in Ukraine. It burns wherever people stand against invasion. And it burns, too, in these quiet moments on a train, in the writing of reflections that may seem small against the roar of war, but which keep memory alive and purpose clear.
So I continue to write. To remember. To bear witness. Not because it will end the war tomorrow, but because forgetting would betray all those who fought so that trains could run peacefully through Europe, so that markets could open in winter, so that children could play without fear.
The balance is difficult to find. The weight is real. But we carry it because we must, because the alternative is unthinkable, because the future we fight for—the one where peace is not a miracle but a foundation—is worth every difficult word, every heavy reflection, every moment of remembering.
Lest We Forget. Ми пам’ятаємо.
From a train moving through peaceful Europe, thinking of home, thinking of hope, thinking of those who made this journey possible.
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