Right around this time, the first year we came to The USA, our new American-Croatian friend took us to visit the downtown shopping mall.
Such an opportunity carried the excitement in the air regardless of our financial inability to buy anything. We can window shop with ease.
In one of the stores, I admire the selection of winter jackets. Next to me, my daughter enjoys colorful scarfs and gloves, while our friend chats with the store clerk.
A couple of minutes into it, while taking the jacket off of the hanger to try, I lost sight of my daughter.
Well-known panic starts claiming my breath. And potentially, as it felt, my life.
Frantically looking around, I ask my friend if my girl is with her. She was not.
I did not speak English at that time so my friend asks the store clerks and we all start checking the spaces between fluffy coats and fixtures.
The store was luckily not huge and we quickly realize my girl is not inside. I rush to the door.
All the horror possibilities run amok in my mind. All were blood-chilling, jaw and fist clenching.
Like many times during the Bosnian war, my body thankfully knew how to run and laser screen surroundings at the same time.
No! I did not endure war, come halfway across the world, leave our home and families to now go through this!
Many other war memories rush in my mind…
My four-year-old in my arms, my husband keeping us closer to the wall and shielding us with his body as we run and grenades exploding in cannonade nearby.
Even though the shelter was not far from our building door, it seemed we will never reach it.
Every moment I could catch a breath I was telling my precious girl we would be ok. And I so strongly, unquestionably believed it even in the scariest of bombings.
I so need such unwavering faith at this moment and this God-sent memory lit the faith fire in my heart.
Storming out into the front of the store, I see her. A few steps on the walkway across the store entrance, hands, and nose glued on the fiberglass fence. My now a second-grader stands alone, looking down to the lower-level shops and the crowd.
I have no voice, my throat closed. Fear and relief colliding in my body almost knock me down. Pushing tears back, I wrap my arms around my daughter thanking God for such a beautiful outcome.
Breath catching, tears rolling, hugging my girl tightly, I accept a new scar on my heart.
This immense scare adds yet another deep layer of knowing the fear and recognizing the pain the parents (including mine) who lost their kid(s) had to live, parents not as lucky as I at that moment.
Both parents and kids of today face perhaps more and greater challenges and tragedies than ever before.
The violence and crimes perpetrated against children are something I have great difficulties wrapping my mind around.
Aren’t kids our highest joy? Aren’t they what we live for? As the new love and life creation, aren’t they the most precious we are capable of bringing to this world?
Every year in the US alone, there are hundreds of thousands of children of every age missing, violated, damaged, abducted, tortured, and abused without the slightest chances to understand what is happening to them, even less to protect themselves or do anything about it.
Some may possibly think –those people or parents don’t deserve kids in the first place. That they deserve anything that comes their way. That they are punished and should be. That those kids got themselves in trouble. That we can’t do anything about it….. Really?
A wise person said: In the information age, ignorance is a choice. We have no luxury of choosing ignorance, of not knowing, even less of not acting.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when we face our self and are forced to admit if we turned our head and closed our eyes to the crimes.
We have it in our DNA to know right from wrong. The mere ability to survive, live or ignore the wrong, does not make it right.
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and a multi-billion dollars criminal industry.
It is stripping freedom and dignity, even life, of millions of young human beings.
Horror stories of organ harvesting, torture, ritual sacrifice… are unfortunately not news anymore.
Can people go any lower?
The month of January is the human trafficking awareness month.
To such a purpose, I dedicated and Amazon published my Messages in Purple – A Journal for Those Who Dare.
for which proceeds go to support efforts of freeing victims of human trafficking.
If you can, I love you to join me, and thank you for whichever way you choose to support this mission.
With love,
Dr. B.
P.S. On a different note, I told you last week about my friend and colleague Irina hosting a free 5 days challenge helping women discover what they truly have inside by looking at their world outside.
My other friend and colleague Melanie is hosting her free 5 day Bliss & Prosperity challenge helping people to get bold enough to claim a life of bliss and prosperity.
Both challenges start on Monday 1/17 and if you are interested or even just curious to join us, register on the link(s) above and see how it can expand your life in many good ways. Yes, I am participating in both and would be happy to see you too 🙂