Lisa Ann Varco / Pirincheva-Toteva Nikolova Vanya
Some decades ago, a man fled for his life swimming across the Danube River. Life behind the Iron Curtain was rife with pain and fear. Red seemed to paint swatches across moments in his life. Communism, love, heartbreak. Apples formed his early memory and way of life. Strawberries tore him away from his home in Bulgaria. Roses in his New York greenhouse helped heal wounds caused by life’s cruelties. As with her father, red also seemed to weave through Lisa’s life. Cranberries over Thanksgiving reignited the longing to find her family, placing this desire in God’s hands. Poppies bloomed amidst the revival of a newfound family. Cherries demonstrated the unfailing strength of Lisa’s father and how “what was once lost, was now found.” The last time Lisa saw her father, she was 11. Yet the yearning to see her family restored never waned. It took years until finally, a letter arrived in a language she couldn’t understand. Decades later, a leaf appeared on a genealogy website. Lisa discovered she had only scratched the surface of her family an ocean and a continent away. 3
