One Life Story

by Lida and Dzevad Avdagic

Life can sometimes surprise us and tell us stories that sound improbable and seem more like the scenes of some film than actual events.  You've probably heard that it can happen that people die of too much sorrow, or sometimes of too much happiness.  The heart simply bursts; it cannot bear that excess of feeling - good or bad.  But to hear of someone dying of too much happiness and sorrow at the same time is quite unusual.  This is exactly what happened in one gorgeous, picturesque village in northwest Bosnia.

Before the war, when Mehmed Hadzic began to build a house on his land in the village of Sevarlije, he tried to do as much of the work as he could with his own hands.

After time passed and the house was finished, Mehmed was filled with a strange feeling.  It was as if, by working and building, he had built a small piece of himself into that pretty, white house with a red tile roof.

He enjoyed his house, orchard, vegetable and flower gardens with his wife and four children.  But that enjoyment didn't last long.

The hurricane of war that caught Bosnia in its grip drove many people out of their homes and scattered them all over the world, as refugees.  This was the fate of Mehmed and his family.  They had to abandon their house and flee, heading into the unknown with tears in their eyes.

Nevertheless, in life everything passes; both happiness and pain. "Everything comes to pass and passes on," says one folk proverb.  In Bosnia as well, the time of war passed on and peace came.  The time came for the return of refugees.

Mehmed came back with his family to Sevarlije.  When he saw the first rolling hills of the area where he was born, he was overcome with such a wave of joy that he thought he would faint.

But then came a shock. "Can this be my house?," Mehmed asked.  He walked around the ruins several times, and the feeling of happiness that he had felt while he was on his way home was replaced by a feeling of pain and betrayal.

It takes so much time to build something, and so little time to destroy it. His heart couldn't bear it.

Life goes on.

His wife Alma and their children, now living in a rebuilt house in their own village of Sevarlije, continue to survive these hard times.

The seeds and hand tools that were distributed by FRB and CWS last spring for the spring planting were very welcome for this family, as they were for the other 299 families of the village as well.

With much hard work they managed to grow and harvest vegetables that will provide food for them through the coming year and seeds for next year's planting.

Through the Give Back system, these people contributed a portion of their harvested vegetables to soup kitchens in the nearby towns of Doboj and Maglaj, where hundreds of poor people come for food every day.

Giving, and not only receiving, is the best medicine for the human heart.

(The food security project at Sevarlije is one that Week of Compassion supports through its Foods Resource Bank funds.)