The Friend Who Taught Me Freedom: A Childhood Memory and a Chaplain’s Reflection
One of the earliest memories engraved in my soul comes from my first years of elementary school in Pristina, Kosovo. I was but seven, awkward with words, slow to speak, often silenced by a stutter. Yet in that silence, I was found and befriended by one whose very name bore a promise—
Slobodan, “free day.”
Slobodan was everything my young self longed to be: intelligent, fearless, outspoken, radiant with life. I, cautious and quiet, communicated with him at a level beyond speech. Words were clumsy guests in my mouth, but between us, there existed a current—something like a
telepathic stream—where understanding flowed freely. He was my first companion of the spirit.
The Summer of Cinema and Coins
That summer, when the city lay under the long, golden sun of three months’ school break, Slobodan led me on an adventure I would never forget. He showed me that the litter scattered in the streets—the bottles, the glass, the discarded papers—were not waste, but possibility.
We gathered them into bags, sold them for coins, and with that treasure entered the grandest theater in town. There, beneath the cool shadows of velvet seats, with popcorn in hand, we watched Kung Fu heroes dance across the screen.
The cinema became a cathedral, and the film, a sermon on freedom, resilience, and joy.
The House That Laughed
I came from comfort—my father, an officer in the Air Force, my family dwelling in a spacious apartment. Slobodan, however, lived in a poor quarter, in a cramped home where poverty pressed upon the walls like an uninvited guest.
His mother, weary yet tender, raised three children alone. Their house, old and fragile, seemed to lean upon the
strength of love rather than stone. And yet it was there, in that simple, struggling place, that I felt a strange happiness—an air of welcome, of warmth, of shared bread and shared laughter.
The Crucible of Generosity
Looking back with the eyes of age, I see now what my boyhood could not comprehend: suffering had shaped Slobodan into a soul
resilient, giving, unafraid. His poverty was no chain but a
crucible, out of which rose generosity and freedom. He was poor, yet rich in spirit.
Our paths later diverged—my family moved, and after third grade, our bond dissolved into memory. I saw him a few times, and each time the same invisible current reawakened. A smile, a glance, and it was as if no time had passed. Whether he survived the wars that ravaged our homeland, I do not know. I only hope he did.
Chaplaincy and the Stranger’s Gift
Yet this memory remains not simply a story of childhood, but a
parable of my vocation as a Chaplain. For is it not the same in the hospital room?
We enter as strangers—often coming from different worlds of wealth, culture, faith, or education. We may believe we have something to give, but in truth,
it is often we who are given to. Patients and families, carrying the wounds of life, offer us treasures of resilience, humor, and faith that no seminary or textbook can bestow.
I have learned that Chaplaincy is not about speaking, but about
listening; not about imposing, but about
receiving. We learn about God not in abstract doctrine but in the trembling prayers of a mother at her child’s bedside, in the quiet courage of a patient enduring suffering, in the resilience of families who continue to hope against all odds.
Slobodan: My First Teacher
Slobodan was, in his way, my
first teacher of Chaplaincy. From him I learned that freedom is not found in comfort, but in spirit; that companionship can transcend words; and that life’s richest treasures are discovered not in what we possess, but in what we share.
Perhaps we all have a “Slobodan” in our past—a friend, a patient, a stranger—who embodied freedom and taught us what no classroom could. These are the
holy encounters that mark the soul, and if we carry them well, they shape us into healers who know how to receive before we ever seek to give.
Every genuine relationship is sacramental. Each moment of shared laughter, each small act of kindness, each silent understanding between souls is a window into the divine mystery.
God often arrives to us hidden, clothed in ordinary faces, walking beside us in the guise of a child, a patient, a neighbor, a friend. As Chaplains, we are called to honor these encounters, to see in them not mere memories but
revelations—whispers of grace that shape our vocation and deepen our humanity.
The Wind of the Spirit
And so I return often, in prayer and in reflection, to that first friendship. It reminds me that
God’s Spirit is not bound by circumstance or privilege, but moves freely, like the wind, breathing life where least expected.
The Spirit dwells in the broken home that still finds joy, in the poor child who teaches generosity, in the wounded patient who bears witness to hope.
In the end, the work of a Chaplain is not so different from the work of a child gathering discarded papers on the streets:
we pick up what others may overlook—the fragments of human sorrow, the scraps of faith, the fragile hopes—and we carry them gently, discovering in them a hidden treasure that can nourish, heal, and even bring joy.
Who Was Your Slobodan?
So I wonder, dear reader—
who was your “Slobodan”? Who was the soul that first revealed to you something of freedom, of grace, of God’s presence in unexpected places?
