Shattered Windows, Shattered Lives
I’m in Barcelona for a conference, but the sluggish Internet at my hotel is making it difficult for me to work. In search of better connectivity, I roam through the city’s charming streets, marveling at the architecture. Just as I’m lost in wonder, a jarring sound interrupts my thoughts — a balloon pops. I startle. Automatically, I hold my breath so as to be undetectable. I expect the worst.
Most people would laugh it off, or so I am told. For those who haven’t lived through the horrors of war, a popping balloon is a moment of amusement, not a trigger. But for me, it’s different. My first instinct is to freeze, identify the source of the noise, and hide from it.
These past years have been an improvement, at least. There was a time when even the joyous fireworks of New Year’s Eve would send me into freeze mode. Such is the lingering impact of growing up amidst a civil war.
My grandpa asked to see us that night. He wanted to spend time with his little girl. My mother decided that we would go and stay overnight with my grandparents, so the three of us — my mother, my brother, and I — made the trip.
My father was away at the time, serving as a member of the pre-war parliament. The country was under lockdown; leaving the capital and making the five-hour-long trip to Vlora was dangerous.
To escape the threatening phone calls my mother had been receiving due to my father’s political involvement, we eventually decided to stay longer with my grandparents. Their home, with its Italian-style architecture, and thick walls, offered a sense of safety. This was in stark contrast to our own home, which my parents had built brick by brick, and expanded as the family grew.
The morning after, my uncle accompanied my mother as she headed home to pack some clothes for our extended stay. Upon arriving, they were horrified to discover our windows shattered, shards of glass littering the floor — even beside our beds, where my brother and I would rest our heads.
A grenade had exploded in our garden the previous night. We later learned it wasn’t directed at us and it was an accident. Plain repercussions of arms depots being unlocked and civilians arming themselves with heavy weaponry like Kalashnikovs and grenades.
The potential consequences of that explosion could have been fatal.
From then on, my mother considered her father her guardian angel. We didn’t return home for months. Eventually, my father joined us after the parliament was dissolved. A technical government was established to handle the emergency.
Chaos reigned for months. My city was at the center of it all. The freedom-loving city that once declared independence was now a prisoner of its own war and its citizens burned the public library.
The lockdown lasted from March till June. Trade was blocked and supply chains were disrupted.
Every evening, rival groups exchanged gunfire, filling the skies and streets with bullets. Every morning, we — the lucky ones who were safe enough to survive — would resume our day and have a meal or two based on flour: bread, pancakes, or kulaç.
Guns were abundant; food was scarce and lives were fragile.
In June, life resumed slowly. We went back to school to finish the year, but life post-war was different for all of us. The atmosphere was tense, filled with loss and uncertainty. I was in 7th grade at the time. That year and the one that followed remain a blur. My memories are sparse. I assume it’s because the brain tends to protect itself and blocks out traumatic experiences. We all rarely talked with others about war times.
I do remember the humanitarian aid that followed. I remember the taste of the sweet, sugary chocolate mix that arrived in neighborhoods for us to collect. Another vivid memory is the final examination of 8th grade and my eagerness to start high school. But that’s all that is left of school...
That short war took a lot from us all. It also left a generation of armed thugs who continue to commit crimes and terrorize others.
As one generation wrestles with the ghosts of its past, striving to heal wounds that often feel unhealable, another generation is ushered into a familiar theater of conflict and despair. Whether it’s the current conflict in Gaza, Ukraine, Armenia, Siria, or the countless, villages across Africa — new faces, same tragedies. I wonder if we will ever break this cycle. When we will say ‘enough’? Will we ever extinguish our primitive, destructive desire to dominate, to subjugate, to annihilate?
And yet, in a world where such monumental problems persist, I find myself agonizing over slow internet — a trivial inconvenience by any measure, but in its own way, a reminder… My own reminder that while the scale of our problems may vary, the essence remains the same: the struggle to adapt, to survive, and perhaps, to find a bit of happiness amid the chaos.
