The Gift of the Golden Fish  

     As they grow up, children in Bosnia-Herzegovina are told a centuries old folk tale about a poor woman who caught a golden fish, released it, and in return gained wealth and happiness. According to a 1998 Associated Press story, this Balkan fairy tale turned into reality for one family.

     Before the start of the Bosnian war, the Malkoc family lived next to a small lake in the northwestern village of Jezero. One day in 1990 Smajo Malkoc returned from a trip to Austria with an unusual gift for his teenage sons, Dzevad and Catib, an aquarium with two goldfish.

     Two years passed before Bosnian Serb forces advanced on the village of Jezero. The women and children fled, and the men stayed back to resist the attacking soldiers. Smajo Malkoc was killed.

     When his wife sneaked back into the destroyed village to bury her husband and rescue what remained of their belongings, she took pity on the fish in the aquarium. She let them out into the nearby lake, saying to herself,

     "This way, they might be more fortunate than us."

     Three years later she returned with her sons to Jezero. Nothing but ruins remained of their home and their village. Through misty eyes she looked toward the lake. Glimpsing something strange, she walked over to the shore.

     "The whole lake was shining from the thousands of golden fish in it," she said. "It made me immediately think of my husband. This was something he left me that I never hoped for."

     During the years of killing all around the lake, life underwater had flourished. After their return her sons and she started caring for and selling the goldfish.

     By 1998 homes, stores, and coffee shops all over the region featured aquariums containing fish from the village of Jezero. The Malkoc house, rebuilt on its original site, is one of the biggest in the village. Two new cars are parked in front, and the family says it has enough money to quit worrying about the future.

     "It was a special kind of gift from our father," Dzevad Malkoc said. "One can never underestimate what a gift of love or an act of kindness might produce. God blesses it and uses it to accomplish great things. Have no doubt that He can take whatever we offer to Him and turn it into something magnificent."
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