When I was a young boy growing up in Yugoslavia, my family owned a small sheep farm nestled between the hills of modern-day Bosnia Herzegovina. I look back fondly on the days when I would follow the trails with my brothers to our school in the village. I met the love of my life on those trails. She was picking berries on a nearby bush. The child must have been the bravest little girl in the world traveling those roads alone as it was well known that wolves prowled the woods. Her name was Petra, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Even though I was a timid child, I knew straight away she was the one. We spent the rest of our youth together, inseparable. I married her very young, at the age of 18. My kind parents had decided to let Petra and I take over the sheep farm when they passed as all my brothers had either left for university in Mostar or joined the military. I took care of my parents dutifully and showered my love Petra with all the love and affection a man could. When we were 20 she got pregnant. I took this very hard, as the family was not in a good financial position. I promised Petra I would go to university to get a good job in the city. I told her I was ashamed to have brought her and our child into the squalor of our failing sheep farm. But she shook her head. I still remember her motherly smile as she kissed me and said, "Zizek, all that matters is we have each other. Nothing could make me happier than our child born into a house of love." 8 months later, the child was born. A boy. We named him Hamza. He was born at a grave time, as it was not long before the Yugoslavian War broke out. Later that year, during a shelling of Mostar by Serbian forces, two of my brothers died at their university jobs. The third was MIA. I begged my father to flee, to get out of the country before the war brought its violence to our home. He had grown stubborn in his old age and told me, "No, Zizek. We will never leave this farm as it has been in our family for generations. Besides, what would soldiers want with our sheep farm?" The following week the war arrived on our doorstep. They were Bosnian soldiers from Mostar, fellow countrymen of ours. There were four of them, armed and slowly starving. They demanded all of our sheep, but we told them we needed to survive as well as winter would soon be upon us. We offered two sheep as a gift of patriotism. They spat in our face and left, naming us traitors. That night Petra could barely sleep as I held our little Hamza close to my chest. Eventually, we began to hear yelling outside, and then the barn began to burn. My mother and father ran out in horror, only for the soldiers to shoot them down. The shots rang out into the cold autumn air. I froze. But not my Petra. She rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a knife to defend our son. I was petrified by fear and shock. Knowing this, she pushed me into a nearby closet to hide with our son. I held him tightly as the soldiers entered the house. There was a scream, then a gunshot, followed by howling laughter. I knew my love was dead. The soldiers did not stay for long. I crept out with my son and slowly walked past my dead wife, lying motionless on the ground. I took what supplies I could and made out into the wilderness to find my uncle in the next village over. I swore on my parents and wife's grave that I would do anything to protect my son Hamza. I will not go into the specifics of my journey out of the war. Needless to say, it was many years before I was able to escape Yugoslavia with Hamza and my uncle to America. When we arrived to this great country, we had eaten nothing but beans and rice for the last six years. So when we touched down in America, with little money, I took my boy to a frozen yogurt store. I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life. The three of us, boys made men by war, began to laugh as we ate. Then we started to cry. We had made it. Years later, I have remarried. She is brave and strong, much like my Petra. My son is a successful engineer. My uncle passed away in 2009, but did so peacefully, happy to have saved his brothers child and grandson from the clutches of war. I am now nearly the age my father was when he died. My son is to be married next year to a beautiful young woman. Before he was off to see her last week, we decided to go get some frozen yogurt to commemorate that meal all those years ago. This is when I entered Kiwi Frozen Yogurt. It immediately reminded me of the war. Food strewn everywhere, children screaming, and the smell of feces permeating through the air. Two young girls, who seemed very nice, sat on their phones in front of the register I went to put toppings on my yogurt (which smelled bad, by the way) but I found someone had beaten me to the punch and taken a bite out of the brownies. This is the worst experience I've had in my life. I would rather be back in that closet watching the love of my life be shot down than ever go here again. One star. read more