tough to find the words

The stories and video coming from Ukraine are almost impossible to process. Regrettably, a long lifetime of gaining personal experience and keeping up with the news has prepared me somewhat. I can’t imagine how this is weighing on my grandchildren, though. Their exposure to James Bond movies and the Marvel Universe may help, because Putin is so efficiently evil that I expect him to warn us of the Doomsday Machine soon.

Bombing a maternity hospital? Not a problem. Killing civilians waiting for supplies? No sweat. Sending raw recruits to the front line? Piece of cake. Yesterday Borys Romanchenko, a 96-year-old survivor of Nazi concentration camps, was killed when his home was shelled. Where do we start in expressing our grief and rage?

I believe this will all catch up to Putin, but not before he deals out much more carnage, and possibly not until he dies. Nothing is off the table for this monster. When a war pushes a still-dangerous pandemic off the front page, know that we are in dark times indeed. Hold your loved ones closer, keep your head clear and remember what’s important.