Before The Roses Died: Memories Of My Childhood In Yugoslavia

 

After climbing the Great Wall, after attending a world-class institution, after the trophies, the opportunities and the achievements, I still think that some of the most meaningful moments of my life happened when I was a kid in Yugoslavia. It’s hard to explain to my American friends or even to those who came here from other parts of the world exactly how I feel. I was eleven when my family moved to the United States. We came to visit my aunt and uncle, but decided to stay because things back home were becoming tense. I was lucky enough not to experience the war, though I felt another kind of pain from far away. I knew that my life would never be the same.Yes, I rode the big yellow bus to school every day and started a new life, but I also missed my home, my family and my friends. When people asked me how the U.S. was different compared to Yugoslavia, the first thing I always thought of was that I had more freedom there. It sounded silly since my country was at war. 

 

Freedom to me meant having independence at an early age.  In the summertime, I rode my bike home alone from my friend’s house at 9 o’clock at night.  After school each day, starting when I was seven, I took the bus from one town to another to get to table tennis practice. My friends and I enjoyed hanging out together for hours while drinking Pepsi and eating ice cream at Mitica’s confection shop. Perhaps because we had similar ambitions or maybe because we spent so much time together training, traveling to tournaments or creating dance routines for school, my friends and I became each others’ biggest supporters. We weren’t scared to face the world and experience new things.

 Pride is another word that I associate with my home country.  When I was in first grade, we were learning about our country’s history and geography.  Our teacher spoke proudly about Yugoslavia.  She bragged, “We have the Alps, the Adriatic, and the Danube. We have great farms and great cities. We have people of different nationalities and religions living next to each other in peace.  We are respected all over the world.”

 Times have changed.

 

My country was ripped apart.  Left behind were wounds that couldn’t seem to heal and memories of better days.  It was hard for me to readjust even though I lived in the States.  My identity was questioned.  I used to say that I was from Yugoslavia and I was quickly reminded by my American friends that “Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore.”  They failed to realize that it still existed in my mind and that I couldn’t relate to anything different.  As time went on I started to accept the way things had turned out.  In the past, so many of my good friends came from different regions of the country.  Now, when I met new people from the former Yugoslavia, I hesitate to assume that we will be close friends, but I hope that I’m wrong.  Though we speak the same language, we all call it something different – Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian. I think it’s hard for all of us.

 

I went back home a few years ago to visit.  My house was new when we left, but it became just a lonely and worn-down keeper of memories.  There were no more rows of colorful roses in the yard and my rusty blue bike hadn’t been touched by a happy child in years.  I’m not sure whether I simply blocked negative memories I had of my childhood in Yugoslavia, but I certainly don’t mind that I don’t have many. Though my life and home are here now, Yugoslavia is very close to my heart because I still have family and friends there.  I often have flashbacks of my childhood when simple things made me so happy.  I remember picking berries in our garden, riding on the back of my grandfather’s bike, singing “We are called Unirea” with my team, buying sunflower seeds at soccer games, eating Eurocrem and Smoki, competing in Senta and Coka, spending summer days by the Tamis, going to the Disko with Octi and listening to Bajaga with Vera, playing hide and seek with my neighbors in clover fields, practicing dance routines with my classmates.  I remember watching Branko Kockica in the afternoons and the Smurfs on Sunday nights.  I remember vacations in Croatia and training camps in Slovenia. I remember trying to make perfume from rose petals and sharing homemade ice cream with friends.  I remember the first time I met Santa and the first time I went to the movie theater. I remember colorful folk paintings on walls. And my pretty house. And laughter.