A Long-Awaited Reunion
After 22 years I finally meet up again with a little Kosovo Albanian boy who survived the massacre of almost his entire family.
I had been sitting outside in the car for half an hour when I was summoned. My daughter came to tell me that the cameras were ready to roll, the protagonists have been miked up, and it was time for me to make an entrance.
Like an actor on the first night of a big show I walked up to the entrance to the oda - the special room in the house where Albanians traditionally receive guests - and prayed that I wouldn't fumble my lines.
I carefully took my boots off, rapped on the door and entered. Uncle Ymer, whom I had not seen in 22 years, grabbed my hand and brought his face close to mine.
We sat cross-legged against the wall, a fire roaring in the middle of the room, and tears begin to roll down his face. "Finally you are here," he said.
Of all the stories I covered as a journalist that of Besnik, a five-year-old Albanian boy, and his uncle Ymer, was one of the saddest.
In September 1998 a group of Serb police and paramilitaries butchered more than 20 members of their extended family in the hills of central Kosovo.
Besnik was the oldest survivor. Captivated by the plight of this shattered little boy for months I continued to visit the family with my translator Leman, returning long after it made sense to do so as a journalist.
And, although it may not have paid huge professional dividends, for the first time in my life I felt on my skin not only the pain, loss and anger that comes with extreme trauma, but the incredible power of the human spirit to survive the worst imaginable travails.
The last time I had seen Besnik he was seven years old. And so when my daughter Emma, who is filming the reunion for a documentary she is making, called him into the oda a few minutes after I had met Uncle Ymer, my heart was in my throat.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't filled with trepidation.
For one, I had long ago taken the painful memories of that time and bundled them away in a drawer - not forgotten, but certainly out of sight. Now I would be opening that drawer again and I was not sure what I would find.
I had other qualms too. For Besnik I knew I must have seemed a knight in armour at the time, arriving into his life bearing toys, chocolate and, later, a blue bicycle. Could the reality match up to the expectation? What if I were to disappoint?
And what if the little boy that I had known - the five year old victim that I had also elevated to a pantheon of untouchables - proved to be something other than I imagined. What if he was macho, or indifferent, or brutish, or we simply didn't get on?
In the event my worries were unfounded. When Besnik walked into the room and grasped my hand there was a huge warm smile on his lips and his eyes were wet. And in that moment I knew that as much as Besnik had meant for me I had meant for him.
"I was really pleased when we could finally sit down," he told me a day later. "I was so overcome that if I had had to continue standing I might have fainted."
We didn't have even a few small words of language in common. Nevertheless we were soon chatting away happily. Leman, a wonderfully warm woman who had worked with me throughout the war, acted as our go-between.
"Did my Dad play with you?" Emma asked him.
"I don't remember playing," Besnik said. "But I remember I liked to sit close to him."
Ymer presented me with a book that had been published about the massacre that included a speech I had made at the reburial of the victims.
Later small tables were brought in piled with food to celebrate iftar, the traditional Muslim meal that comes as the sun sets during the month of Ramadan.
The children of the family joined us. Among them were Besnik's two: Noel aged two, and Lulje aged four.
The seriousness evaporated as the kids yelled and charged around the room and rolled on their backs with delight at some toys Emma had brought them.
Yesterday I met Besnik again, this time at the army base where he is stationed. He is now a soldier - part of the new Kosovo security force.
When we were introduced to his commander - a hollow-faced old wolf of a man who had spent a decade fighting the Serbs in the hills - we all became emotional.
The commander dug out his special stock of home-made raki - a plum brandy that is popular in the Balkans - and we remembered the old times and the sacrifices that had been made.
Over lunch Leman showed me a Facebook post Besnik had put up about our reunion the day before. It showed two photos: one of the three of us back then - Leman, Besnik and I, and one from the present day.
Underneath Besnik had written to Leman and me:
"We were going through the worst of times when you visited us more than 22 years ago. We were very young then but you have not forgotten us, and neither I nor the other children who survived will ever forget you.
When we first met you it gave us a glimmer of hope that things were going to get better - even though we had lost almost everything. We remember the gifts and toys you gave us, which brought a little smile to our faces, when we no longer knew how to smile."
I looked at Besnik, who was sitting to my right, and a moment of tenderness passed between us.
"You are the only one of us that hasn't cried this week," Emma had said to me the night before, a little exasperated.
I do cry sometimes. After Kristin, my wife, died it seems that I cried for months, sometimes barely aware of the tears on my cheeks.
But there is a bittersweet quality that the passing of years gives to properly-mourned loss that is beyond words - and tears.
Please send suggested corrections and feel free to comment. Some of my posts on this project will be for all subscribers, others for paid subscribers.
You have incredible courage going back to Kosovo and diving into all that comes up in the process Julius. Keep the posts coming.
Very powerful. I wish you a good journey, Julius