The life of a refugee is about leaving everything behind: family, house, job, school. It often means fleeing with little more than the clothes on your back and whatever you can carry. Many flee with just the most basic necessities they need to keep their families warm or to stave off hunger. Yet many also refuse to part with items or tokens whose value is exceptionally important to them, more for the memories they invoke or the emotional comfort they afford than their monetary value. "There was no way I was leaving home without my dog," said Angalina Osipenko, 22, a nurse from Kharkiv, as she stood outside Chelm train station waiting to be picked up by a relative who lives in Poland (as seen in photo 1 with Tmatri, her Maltese dog). Dasha Kosyanechuk, 19, carried her favorite pillow from Odessa (seen in photo 2), in southern Ukraine, to Chelm – a journey that took four days. “I can’t sleep on any other,” she said Tuesday at the Chelm station, where three or four trains arrive each day from Ukraine full of people hoping the worst is behind them but facing a new universe of uncertainty. For Yusef Grinchak, 15, it was two swimsuits for playing water polo (seen in photo 3), both with Ukraine's national colors of blue and gold. Grinchak and his mother, Irina, fled from Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, which has suffered some of the most heavy bombardment from Russian forces. Tap our link in bio to read more of their stories, and the things they carried away from home - and what they left behind. 📷: Jessica Koscielniak for @usatoday