mostar

The thing about this cemetery in Mostar is that all the people buried here were born in different years. Usually in a small cemetery all the people were born around the same time, because one life span later the cemetery was made. But here people born in 1947 and 1966 and 1955 and 1974 are all buried next to each other, in clean white marble rows, because they all died in 1993.

What is a year like, when everyone dies at once? Where do you find compassion for the loss of your daugher or your brother when everyone you know is mourning their own losses?

In 1993 I was thinking about college and my new drivers licence and Jordan Potash. I didnt think much about the war going on, and when I did I imagined it far away and happening between irrational, even crazy, foreign people. It didnt occur to me that nice people with pretty houses and department store sweaters would kill each other. What would be the point of that?