The rapidly unfolding refugee crisis in Ukraine provoked a heartbreaking and fascinating story in the New York Times recently on the practicalities of flight. If you are forced to leave your home with little chance to plan or to take more than you can stuff in your pockets, what do you bring along? Reporter Alissa J. Rubin got an answer from a number of Ukraine refugees in her piece, The One Item They Had to Take When These 6 Afghans Fled.

Among the answers: a sapphire and silver ring given by a male friend to a young woman who hopes he will still care for her when they are reunited. “Everything changes” during a separation, she tells the Times. “But I have not taken it off my finger since it was given to me.”