My grandmother and I shared a deep bond. I was still very young, when she died. Too young to understand the treasures hidden in her knowledge and experiences. During my visits in the years that followed, I would embark on a treasure hunt each time, searching through the few surviving relics of her life, hoping to feel a connection to her.
As my visits gradually became as infrequent as once every eight years, I found myself caught in a kind of Memento loop. Each time, I looked at my discoveries with fresh eyes, as though I were seeing them for the very first time.
During one of these searches, a thin green school notebook caught my eye. Yellowed pages. Handwriting from another era. For decades, it had lain hidden beneath a mountain of letters, papers and handwritten recipes. I was certain I was the first in my family to open it.
I read some words several times, my brow furrowed, my eyes narrowed as I struggled to decipher the handwriting. Then I realised: these were my grandmother’s diary entries. They told of a journey she had made sixty years earlier, back to the Ukraine of her childhood. Of growing up under Stalin’s regime, of losing her home and family, of hunger and survival.
For as long as I live, I had believed that my family had always been poor. Only through her accounts did I discover how the war had torn apart her family, once rich in land and livestock, leaving them to face death.
Only now, looking back, do the parallels between her story and our present become even clearer. Wars, financial crises, rapid technological developments, and people whose livelihoods and identities are shattered in their wake. History repeating. Reading her words again today, it feels as though I am standing beside her, back then.
I discovered this document during my own journey to Ukraine. My reason for travelling there, however, was different: I wanted to find the man I had dreamed of since childhood, yet had never laid eyes on. My father.
The closer I came to Ukraine, the deeper I immersed myself in the country’s history through my grandmother’s words. And the more I felt a part of myself that was unknown, yet somehow familiar.
TWO HOPES is out now, published by Salt Publishing.
Two Hopes blends travel memoir, family mystery, and historical reportage. Determined to find her absent father, Nadezda embarks on a journey to reconnect with her family’s roots — accompanied by her grandmother’s own diary entries, also named “Nadja,” recalling her return to Ukraine in the 1960s.
