The year was 1993, and Mostar lay in pieces. Buildings that once held laughter were now hollow shells of stone and dust. Bridges, streets, schools—nothing was untouched by the war. Among those who walked the shattered city was a boy of twelve named Emir.
He had lived once in a home with blue shutters and a garden of roses. Now, every morning, he left the cramped basement where his family took shelter and searched for water. Sometimes, he carried a battered tin can, sometimes just an old bottle. The streets were silent except for the sharp cracks of distant fire.
One morning, on his way back, he noticed something faint against the broken wall of the library, a building gutted by bombs. It was a lantern, its glass cracked, but inside glowed the stub of a candle. Someone had left it there, burning. Emir stopped. In the middle of the rubble, that fragile flame looked almost defiant.
The next day it was there again, a fresh candle, burning. Day after day, someone placed it there. Emir never saw who. He only knew that whenever he walked past, the flame seemed to whisper, you are not alone.
Years later, when the war ended, Emir asked around. He learned it had been an old woman, Lela, who lived near the ruins. She had lost her son early in the fighting, but she came every morning with a candle and set it in the ruins of the library. “If books could not survive,” she had said, “then at least light should.”
For Emir, those small flames became the first memory of hope in a time when hope seemed impossible. They were not grand gestures, nor speeches, nor victories. Just tiny lights flickering beneath broken stone.
Emir grew up, studied architecture, and returned to rebuild the city. He helped restore bridges, schools, and even a corner of the library where the lantern once stood. To this day, he keeps a candle burning on his desk. Not for religion, not for tradition—but for the reminder that even the smallest light can change the course of a life.
And if you walk through Mostar now, on certain nights when the streets are quiet, you will see small candles set in windowsills. Neighbors say it is just custom. But Emir knows. He knows those flames carry the memory of a woman who believed in light, even when the world was nothing but ruins.
