My parents built our house in Kharkiv with their own hands and it meant an entire life to them. Then, four years ago, my mother's stroke left her paralyzed, and two years ago, cancer struck my father claiming a part of his stomach. The full-scale war brought a new level of distress with constant echoes of missiles, fighter jets, and explosions around our home, leaving us in perpetual confusion and fear. Persuading my father to leave was a battle itself. He clung to the house they built saying, "We were hoping to live here till the end". Yet, faced with the war horrors of Kharkiv, I knew that I couldn't aid two ailing parents in a city with not enough food and medicines. …Finally, we left Kharkiv as a part of a convoy. There were three lanes of the cars. Some cars were already hit. There were some cars with plastic instead of glass windows, with projectiles and bullet holes in the car doors. Many cars had the words “дети” (”children”) written on them. We drove to Poltava and spent the seasons in a nearby village. In November 2022, we discovered that my father's lymph node swelled threefold. The surgery was necessary and we had to go back to Kharkiv so the doctors who treated my father before, could do it. My father, like a real fighter for life, took my mom and our dog, got behind the wheel of his car, and hit the road. That's when Helping to Leave became our lifeline, covering the costs of examinations, chemotherapy, and essential medications. Now, after surgery, my father is feeling well. He dreams for the war to end and keeps making jam from hand-picked apples from his garden, a symbol of hope amid war chaos.