Turn away from the tragic news in Ukraine for a few minutes and slide back in time to the early 1970s when life was filled with contentment, by little girl standards. In my mind, when the world seems upside down, I revisit my paternal grandparent’s yellow-tiled kitchen on Fort Hamilton Parkway in Bay Ridge.

Come back with me to Marie and Bob Silvestri’s second-floor apartment on a mizzly, weekday morning. In the background, the radiator hisses and Rambling with Gambling rambles on the radio. My grandmother stands with her back to me several feet away as she scrubs clothes on a washboard angled upwards in one of the sink’s bays.