Remember

As my friend Tijana said this Day of the Dead, there are no coincidences, everything happens for a reason.

The first thing that happened is that my daughter asked me to do crafts and I chose to make this poppy. The thought of a poppy floated to me and it felt right as looking at this poppy for days has felt right.

The second thing that happened is that my friend Jelena had her birthday this weekend and I chose to get her Sasha Hemon's The Book of My Lives and as I was holding the book in the book store a desire to read it overwhelmed me. Later that evening my friend and Tijana's sister Vaneja gave me her Bosnian translation of The Book of My Lives to read and, knowing that I had no control over what was happening, I gave her a kiss. The weekend continued unsuspiciously and I immersed myself into Sasha's youth that was also my youth in our home city of Sarajevo. Familiar names, streets, schools. Familiar way of growing up reading, watching movies and talking about them with friends over endless coffees and cigarets as a way of hiding our insecurities.  And loving every second of my life in Sarajevo, even the lonely, smoggy December days. It then so happened that on this Remembrance Day I took the kids to school, went for a jog, showered and made myself a cup of tea. Then the time stopped and in complete silence of a quiet autumn day I continued reading. Youth coming to an end, Sasha was describing the thin line that split our Sarajevo life from the rest of our life. And as the rest of our life started, he described the beginning of the Bosnian war.

The third thing that happened is that I then attended the Remembrance Day assembly in my daughter's school, mostly because she was supposed to sing and I love to listen her singing. As the Where Did the Flowers Go went on, my grin of proudness for hearing my daughter's voice over all other kids' voices disappeared and I found myself thinking about the only war that is real for me, the Bosnian war. I thought of Sasha's brave decision to dedicate one chapter to answering the Why and I felt the anger of all people on Earth who have every been drawn into a war, surprised by it, when all they ever wanted was piece. I command Sasha for making me remember the genocide that was committed in my country and the suffering that was brought onto millions of people who lost their way of life as a result.

They will never learn but we will never forget.