My dad turned 80 this summer. We’ve lived on separate continents since he and my mom managed to smuggle me out of our war-torn hometown of Sarajevo, Bosnia, when I was 16. Desperate to save what little was left of my childhood, my parents made the painful decision to send me abroad and ensure my survival — even if it meant cutting our family apart.
The next two and a half decades of physical and emotional distance pulling at the fragile fibers of our once tight-knit unit is not the kind of loss that can be distilled into a hard statistic. But it is one of the most insidious blows the war dealt our family.
My relationship with my dad is layered and hurtful. It is infused with love, but weighed down by our shared memories of nearly four years of siege and terror. It is laced with longing for lost time while at the same time weary of the years we spend apart. Just saying the word ‘tata’ makes me replay various scenes that are both hot and bittersweet.
We caught our deepest hurt when I was 13. It was a rare peaceful day in Sarajevo, and after much begging, Mom let me out. Suddenly, an artillery shell exploded nearby and I was caught in a shower of shrapnel. Just as dad picked me up from the ground, a stranger went to help and I was led into his car.
Dad held me in his arms as I soaked his red shirt.
“Don’t let me lose my feet,” I begged him.
He ran and pulled me closer as we zipped through intersections.
Bullets hit our car.
“They want to finish me,” I shouted.
A few hours later, both of my legs bound a panicked nurse in a room full of dead and injured as the walls of the hospital shook from the explosions. Dad ran into a friend who offered to give us a ride home, but just as we were about to leave, blood seeped into my bandages. We had to go back for another mattress.
Finally lying in the back seat with thick strips of blood-stained gauze wrapped around my thighs and calves, I was falling in and out of a sickly fatigue until Dad produced a bar of chocolate from his shirt pocket. The blood hadn’t seeped through the crumpled foil, so it fell a few blocks between my chapped lips. It was the sweetest subscription.
Nadja Halilbegovich, 21, sits next to her parents when they visited her in Indianapolis, Ind. (Submitted by Nadja Halilbegovich)
Since I escaped at the age of 16, I have never thought of returning to Bosnia. I have gone for short visits to see family and friends, but returning permanently was never an option. Even thousands of miles away, I live in the wake of war and its relentless tides. I can’t imagine ever feeling safe in a place where I lost so much – where we lost so much.
Today, the streets of Sarajevo bear hundreds of concrete scars from the mortars that killed unarmed civilians. Backpacks opened by the deadly shrapnel spray out of the crater, creating a flower-like effect. They have been filled with red resin and named “Sarajevo Roses” to commemorate the victims of the siege of the city. I cringe every time I walk past a rose, always giving it a big berth, but what’s even more chilling is the fact that I need look no further than my feet to see the legacy of war and violence. Although my scars have largely faded, it’s my Sarajevo roses that I can’t get past.
Sarajevo Roses commemorates the victims of the siege in Sarajevo. (Wikimedia Commons/Wikimedia Commons)
My last visit to Sarajevo was five years ago. After Mom died unexpectedly in 2013, the return became even more difficult—like a slow and deliberate picking of a wound that has never fully healed. Spending an afternoon in my parents’ small apartment, every corner manicured by Mom’s delicate touch, causes a unique kind of pain, especially since Dad keeps their bedroom afloat with her perfumed presence: the elastics of her hair, her makeup and a half-baked lotion are waiting as if she’s just stepped out on a quick errand. He doesn’t sleep in their bedroom, but makes a bed on the sofa in the living room.
After lunch, I would sit in the living room while Dad made tea. I couldn’t help but look at the folded blanket, a rumpled sheet, and a pillow piled at the foot of the sofa. My eyes looked over the shelves above the TV and I noticed a small travel sized clock that we’ve had since I was a kid. The hands were static — pointing to the wrong time.
“I think the little black watch needs new batteries,” I told Dad.
“No honey,” she said as she placed the teacup in front of me. “I stopped this clock when your mom died.”
Nadja Halilbegovich’s parents during a visit to Canada in 2012. (Submitted by Nadja Halilbegovich)
I couldn’t say anything, so we sat in silence. Instead, my mind imagined scenes I had pieced together from the excerpts I heard from my dad and brother: Minutes after Mom died in the hospital, Dad sat by her bed and kissed her one last time. Her cheeks were still warm when she kissed them—one for me, one for my brother.
I wish I had gotten up and hugged my dad after the silence had passed. I wish we had talked then and I wish we could talk now about our grief for Mom and the clock that no longer keeps time. I wish we could talk about that day in the hospital and the sight of my blood blooming through the gauze. I wish I could tell him about the milky puddle of chocolate on my tongue as I lay in the back seat of the car and how it was the sweetest last taste of my childhood since I couldn’t be a kid anymore.
I realize now that Dad and I share the same hurt — it hurts me to go back, and it hurts him that I could never go back. Unfortunately, even when we are together, there is an ocean between us. An ocean made up of missed birthdays and milestones. an ocean full of daily joys and sorrows, heartbreaks, real health scares, nagging colds and upset stomachs. Things that seemed too small or insignificant to talk about, or things that scared or upset us so much that we didn’t want to share them so as not to burden each other.
But in this benevolent curation of our lives, we did not spare each other as we always thought. Instead, we missed countless opportunities to strengthen the bonds that bind us. Even worse, we unknowingly allow war to sink its jagged teeth into the marrow of our lives.
Nadja Halilbegovich’s dad kisses her on the cheek after she received an honorary doctorate in 2013 from Butler University for her work as a peace advocate. (Submitted by Nadja Halilbegovich)
I realize now that we often spent our time together cramming in as many activities as possible which gave us a brief sense of making up for lost time. I wonder if all the self-imposed busyness was just a distraction and a way to avoid conversations that were likely to cause sadness, regret or resentment. However, only if we reveal our wounds and clean up the debris together can we hope for healing.
The truth is that war has never stopped hurting us. We continue to suffer injuries even afterwards, only they are hidden and insidious. As Dad enters his ninth decade and I become acutely aware of the slippage of time, I find myself dreaming of what our future visits should be like: Tata and I sitting and talking. We laugh and we cry. He teaches me how to make his delicious potato salad. He tells me stories about when he and mom were young. We go for walks and see the world around us. Together, we reclaim a few inches of what the war took from us.
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