The clock strikes 9:00 a.m. My mom gives the apartment a final check before closing it up for the next few months. My dad is waiting for us outside. The cab taking us to the airport for our return to Germany, has arrived on time — these are the last moments of a week spent in Kosovo.

I had not been back in Kosovo for almost three years, and I felt like seeing my grandma and my parents’ new apartment in Lipjan. It was a nice apartment, nothing excessive, yet, to me, it seemed to bring me peace. Maybe because it is my parents’ place, and you could see their personality through the care with which the colours, the furniture, and details were chosen. Perhaps it was also all the sacrifices I could see in the still-missing things. Not every room is furnished. There is no TV cabinet. These details make me think about how much they have suffered and how they have always put their own desires aside.

“You should move back here,” I told them, seconds after I walked in and took a quick first look at the kitchen and living room. They laughed and said nothing. I should have ended the sentence with “So, you stop suffering.”

My mom locks the front door, and as I watch her, I realize how sad it is to leave an apartment empty for months, to lock the sacrifices of a lifetime behind walls and only enjoy them for a few weeks a year. As we go out, dad talks to the taxi driver, who is related to my mom. I greet him, shake his hand, and get in the car as it is cold. 

My mom gets in the back next to me without interrupting the conversation between the driver and my dad. I sit and listen to their conversation. 

It’s hard for me to focus on achievements when I hear Albanian immigrant success stories. What comes to mind instead is the price paid for such success – especially by parents: the distance that separates families, the long wait for vacations just to return and see parents and siblings, the heartbreaking calls that announce the death of loved ones, the pain and guilt of not being able to return for funerals, and the tears shed during each goodbye at the end of every visit. The pain caused by distance is an obvious one. But there is another, less visible one, which fewer people think about — the dreams and wishes of lives never realised.

As their conversation continues, I question what dreams my parents might have had. What life did they envision for themselves when they were young?

The lives they gave up

My mom had dreamed of becoming a teacher or professor of literature. I don’t know what exactly my dad had dreamt of. At the very least, he would have liked to have had something of his own, even just a small store. My father emigrated to Italy in 1994 in search of work. A year later, he decided to take me and my mother too. Since then, their only concern has been to find any kind of work that brings home money. What could their lives have been if, instead of surviving, they could have lived and followed their dream jobs? If, instead of their children’s successes, they had been able to celebrate their own? 

Instead, as most of their generation had to, they did whatever job helped them survive, putting their own dreams aside. They never gave up, despite the hardships and harshness of the tasks. They never complained, even though they, like everyone else, deserved to have better in life. One of my favourite childhood memories is excitedly greeting them when they arrived home from work; they always had this kind of smell, of humility and sacrifice — a load lightened after our hugs.

As I do with every trip, I took a book with me. This time it was Jan Plamper’s “Das neue wir” (In English: The new us) – a book about migration and its part in Germany’s history. One piece that particularly struck me perfectly encapsulated the dilemma of first-generation immigrants: “The most unhappy people in this world were immigrants of the first generation. They wanted to save some money and then go back home. But in the end, it was often too late — they had put down roots.” 

I was reminded of a phrase by Marracash, my favourite Italian rapper, who sings: “Only then did I see my father happy again.” In this lyric, Marracash refers to the summers he and his parents would spend in southern Italy, where they had migrated to from northern Italy. We made the same kind of travel every summer for years, and only in Kosovo would I see my parents happy. The tension from their bodies would disappear here, and they laughed freely, almost forgetting the burden they had carried until then. 

I quickly realized that the luxury I had in having a comfortable life, growing up in a developed country where I never lacked anything, was due to my parents’ conviction. From then on, I promised I would do anything to make them happy and proud so they could laugh, like they did in Kosovo. And in some way, I succeeded. My parents’ sacrifices allowed me to achieve in school and land a good office job, successes that made them happy. But it didn’t take me long to realise that this had become my sacrifice, a desire to want to repay them.

My successes could not change their daily lives; those dreams, in reality, had been more theirs than mine. All these sacrifices, emigrating to another country to give us a better life, spending a lifetime in a country they felt was not theirs, speaking a foreign language, and accepting whatever work they were given, had unintentionally put a huge burden on us, their children. 

The pressure of repaying that debt, even though they never asked us to, led to internalised guilt. 

Getting trapped in the expectations and dreams of your parents happens to many children, regardless of whether or not their parents have immigrated. The difference for children of immigrants, however, is the difficulty of getting out of this trap. Because not meeting their expectations after all these sacrifices would be like spitting on their hard work.

This burden can lead to all sorts of consequences, such as choosing specific schools, careers, or accepting a specific job that is to your parents’ liking, even if it is not your dream job. It might include choosing a partner based on nationality, because it is the right choice to make. In the Albanian diaspora, we know these decisions might not be right for us, but it takes courage to make choices that go against our parents’ wishes. 

Head in Germany, mind in Kosovo

“I guess he didn’t sleep,” I heard my mother say to the taxi driver as I opened my eyes. I had fallen asleep, but quickly realized they had mentioned me, and I already knew why. The taxi driver began a monologue.

“Now the children of immigrants are getting more and more assimilated. And now they also marry other nationalities. But I don’t understand how you can feel good about marrying a man or woman who doesn’t speak Albanian. And what will you do with the children?” he said.

The expectations are always the same. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep. I have no strength and no desire to be part of the conversation. 

Three hours later, we are back in Germany. As soon as we get home, we set up our things. I go into the living room and turn on the television. Meanwhile, I hear my mom from the kitchen immediately calling my grandma in Kosovo. I lie on the sofa, feeling the fatigue of the trip, I close my eyes. When I open them, half an hour has passed.

I get up and walk toward what used to be my room before I moved out on my own. It is very close to my parents’ room; both rooms have their doors closed. From one door, I can hear my mom still talking to my grandma. From the other one, I hear a clear sound; my dad is playing the çifteli, the traditional Albanian instrument. Probably another dream he would have wanted to fulfill if only he hadn’t emigrated.

I am moved by the urgency and the need with which they immediately sought contact with their roots, despite having just returned from Kosovo after spending a week there. I perceive it as a silent shout of pain. 

It reminds me of a quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “I’m a master of speaking silently — all my life I’ve spoken silently and I’ve lived through entire tragedies in silence.” 

I stand in the hallway, still, listening to the melody played by my father. In the background, I hear my mom’s conversation. All I can do is ask myself a question that has been rattling around in my head for years — was it worth it?

Feature Image: Arrita Katona / K2.0.

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