There are no walls any longer. The broad wooden roof beams lie splintered and scattered, and random pieces of clothing dangle from damaged water pipes. But among the rubble of what used to be her home, the house that her grandparents built, Anna Shevchenko sees a glimmer of hope.
There, among the twisted metal and broken bricks of her former life in Irpin, stood the slender stalk of one of her beloved lilies. A bit further, some roses had survived. A small bunch of daffodils and a tiny peony poked through the destruction, battered but not broken. And her tulips are starting to bloom.
