I was rolling out the pizza dough not really listening to the radio and I suddenly heard Bosnian. No, Serbo-croatian. The report was about Zrebenica, and the voice was a man blessing some troops who were about to head out slaughter Muslims.

I listened for another few seconds, and then I had to turn it off. Oh shit, oh God, The stories are all true. I kept thinking. I'm still thinking.

I've heard the stories for years and they all start to sound the same which makes them seem less real rather than more. I do recall the dates I've heard --it's July 7th for Fatima. July 11 for Ajisa. They lived near the city.

I can't remember the date Remzija (same page as Fatima) from Vlasenica  lost every male member of her family. No, that's not right. Every man in her family was brutally murdered, all within 24 hours. Her mother died soon after and her sister mysteriously "disappeared". She told me all of that, and now I understand. It's all true.

The women who lived near Tuzla have a different date. But when July draws near, I know the ladies are going to grow quieter stare out the window, pay less attention to me, or simply not show up. Last winter, one began to cry for no reason, rocking back and forth and crying inconsolably. The other ladies patted her on the shoulder and then ignored her. Finally one got angry. She spoke in a loud angry voice. I only understood "No, stop" and later a student explained the rest of what she had said "you can't keep crying. It doesn't help so just stop it." The crying woman's son would have turned twenty that day -- if he hadn't been shot nine years earlier. When the student told me about her son's death, I nodded and felt my eyes fill with sympathetic tears. But it wasn't until today when I heard the radio that my hands began to tremble and I felt sick, a sensation I hadn't had for about five years, when I first started working with refugees.

The stories are true and some of the survivors are my friends. And even I had stopped hearing and feeling the truth of their pain.

Excuse me. I think I'm gonna go scream or throw up.