Clouds and Consequences

I’m 30,000 feet above the ground, strapped into a narrow airplane seat, when I stumble on this piece: a Ukrainian mother’s midnight lullaby interrupted by missiles, her five-year-old warily following the “two wall rule.” It’s a scene so raw I can practically hear the air-raid siren slicing through the hush of the cabin. My seatbelt might keep me safe from turbulence, but it can’t hold back the wave of sorrow crashing into me right now.

https://cepa.org/article/kyiv-air-raid-lullabies/

The plane hums mechanically, overhead lights flickering as people shuffle around to pee for bedtime. Meanwhile, for some in Kyiv, bedtime means half-sleep in hallways or a race to find a spare patch of floor in the metro station. You read about it—these insane, nightly missiles aimed at a child who still argues about brushing his teeth. You think: How is any of this real? I’m sipping ginger ale and adjusting my seat recline, yet she’s teaching her son how to tuck himself away from shattered glass. It feels utterly profane and obscene.

The mother’s voice in the article is painfully calm, talking about chores and nighttime routines—things I’ve always taken for granted. I imagine the two of them lying side by side in the hallway, the boy cradling his pillow, while something dreadful whines overhead. The mother thinks about a future that might not include a comfortable bed, that might not include their city standing, that might, in Putin’s demented vision, not include Ukraine at all. My heart knots up because—God help me—I remember complaining about a delayed flight just hours ago. Meanwhile, she’s counting minutes until the next rocket strike.

I can’t stop picturing that five-year-old. He’s got bedtime stories, lullabies, and missiles aimed at him. In my mind, he’s toying with a stuffed animal—maybe the only constant in his precarious life—while the walls around him might crumble at any second. And I realize: if I’m reeling from second-hand words on a screen at cruising altitude, how must this mother feel, day after day, tucking him in with one eye on the phone for the missile alert?

My fellow passengers seem blissfully unaware. Some doze, some watch an in-flight rom-com, oblivious that, right now, a kid in a warzone has traded soft toy trains for the grim knowledge of a bomb shelter’s layout. It’s not supposed to be this way. Children shouldn’t have to memorize exit routes. Parents shouldn’t have to ration out nightmares as if they’re bedtime snacks. Yet here we are, in 2024, witnessing the same old story—power-hungry tyrants stamping all over innocent lives.

Reading about her child’s questions—what happens if the school collapses, or if the Russians march straight into their living room—can give anyone a case of terminal volvulus in their gut.  I don’t want to imagine a world where war is a normal part of growing up. Yet these kids don’t get to choose. They’re robbed of innocence, planning for a future that might be bombed into dust by dawn. And I, at my window seat, can’t do a damn thing except feel the ache in my throat and try not to sob loud enough to alarm my neighbors.

The mother’s voice rings louder in my head than the flight attendant’s announcements. She says he wants to captain a ship one day, a peaceful, ordinary dream. He shouldn’t have to wonder if the vessel needs weapons or if his nation will even exist by then. He shouldn’t have to lie in a hallway, pillow in hand, while his mother watches the clock strike 3 am, bracing for the next shrieking siren. And we, who have the luxury of a “fasten seatbelt” sign and a predictable landing time, can’t pretend we didn’t see this. We can’t pretend these horrors are too far away to matter.

So here I am, mid-flight, reading these lines with tears pricking at my eyes. The seatbelt sign dings off, but my heart feels weighed down by the knowledge that somewhere in front of me, a mother hums a lullaby over missile blasts. I wish I could reach down through the atmosphere and give them both a shield, show that boy a world where bedtime doesn’t come with a countdown to “high danger.” But I can’t. All I can do is carry this story with me, keep it alive, and refuse to let complacency smother it.

It’s not enough. It will never feel like enough. Still, I close my eyes and imagine that boy on his future ship, sailing people to beautiful places—places unscarred by war. It’s a small ember of hope in a world that’s too often overshadowed by greed and madness. And if I can hold onto that vision while the plane descends, maybe, just maybe, I can help fan the flames of empathy back on solid ground.

Because the next time I hear someone say, “It’s not our problem,” I’ll remember the mother’s quiet footsteps down that hallway, the child’s small voice asking about school bomb shelters, and the unsettling knowledge that somewhere, bombs are falling while I’m landing safely. If that doesn’t gut me, nothing will.