17. ISMAR’S DREAM

MERSIHA posted a picture of her comeback cake on Instagram: a joyful baby elephant. She managed to stay away from her business for only 10 months.

She had enjoyed having more time with her family—especially in the summer, when her kids invited their friends over for barbecues, and she would bring out steaming bowls of corn on the cob.

“But I can’t lie—I love this,” she said about her bakery. “I missed the business.”

It touched her that so many old customers kept asking when she would be back. She was nervous before catering her first event.

“I wondered if I lost my touch,” she said. “But we got eight emails right after the baby shower.”

She was determined to run her business differently, for now: “I have to go small,” she said. Only one cake a week. And she would focus on wedding cakes for which she could charge more, “not the little birthday cakes that take over everything.”

Still haunted by her aunt’s death, she resolved to take better care of herself. She had a doctor check her legs. She bought a thick pad to stand on as she baked.

But she knew she had to guard against her own impulses: “I have to go slowly. I cannot let things get out of control. I am my own worst enemy.”

Being back in business released a stream of pent-up desires: She and her husband decided they would open a café as soon as their two oldest kids were in college. They discussed one day opening a culinary school. She wanted to complete an online master’s in education she had started years ago, so she could teach if the café did not work out.

Mersiha had no idea that Ismar, her quiet, eldest child—about to turn 18—had his own dream.

Like all her kids, Ismar—a short, good-looking boy with horn-rimmed glasses—was dutiful, a hard worker. After school, he and Faris worked as waiters in the large senior adult facility, where their dad cooked and supervised the kitchen. They also helped deliver their mom’s cakes.

When he and Faris decided they wanted a car, they saved up $7,200 and bought a 2012 Nissan Rogue to share.

He had a close-knit group of offbeat, nerdy friends; most were the children of refugees. Mersiha adored them: “They are the nicest kids in the world!”

In Bosnia, a young person’s 18th birthday is a major event.

“We don’t celebrate 16,” she explained. There are only three big occasions: “Your first birthday, your 18th, and your wedding.”

Mersiha decided to throw what she called a “Hollywood red carpet party” for Ismar.

Ismar happily went along with her idea. He had one request: a ‘Kinder cake,’ which is named after an Italian chocolate bar, with a creamy filling.

The day before the party, Mersiha transformed her bakery: She rolled out a red carpet. She loaded a dessert table with scores of pastries and a beautiful Kinder cake made of German, Swiss, and Belgian chocolate.

She set up different rooms: for video games; for dancing; for taking photos. When the young people arrived, she made ‘VIP cards’—taking photos of all 22 friends—then laminating them and attaching cords.

At the end of the night, the teenagers—VIP cards around their necks—walked the red carpet, striking poses.

A few weeks later, Ismar was offered a full scholarship to Utica College, plus spending money; Mersiha and Hajrudin were thrilled. He had graduated as the salutatorian of his class at the Utica Academy of Science, a charter high school in Frankfort, New York.

They hoped he would become a doctor or go into cybersecurity, which Hajrudin saw as an expanding and lucrative field.

As refugee parents, they never considered the idea of his going away; they wanted him close by.

But Ismar had his own plan.

He had never talked about it to his parents—but he had decided a couple of years ago he wanted to design video games, something that had interested him since he was a child. And he had gotten into a new computer game design program at SUNY Polytechnic Institute, which accepted only a small number of students. The school only offered him a $10,000 a year tuition scholarship—but he figured out that by working part time and summers he could manage.

When he discussed this with his parents, they were mystified: How could he reject a full scholarship? How could designing games be a career?

Mersiha was still unconvinced after he took her to an open house at the SUNY Poly campus in Marcy. It was only about 10 minutes away, but she had never been there. Utica College was familiar; she had driven by it many times. “Everybody says Utica is a very good college,” Mersiha told him. “A lot of people want to get scholarships there.”

Then Ismar threw his parents another curveball: He said that after graduating college, he was moving to the West Coast—to Los Angeles or Seattle—to get a graduate degree in business. The gaming companies he hoped to work for were out there.

For Mersiha and Hajrudin, it was as if the earth dropped open. They had survived a war—and had managed to escape to a city nearly 5,000 miles away.

They had created a new life.

Now their son was talking about leaving for a part of America they knew nothing about. “I was freaking out,” Mersiha said. She told him, “Convince us!”

Ismar did not take this lightly.

“Having refugee parents is a kind of challenge,” he said, sighing. “None of my struggles can compare to theirs when they came here. I wish I could’ve helped them more.”

He did not know all the details of his parents’ experience in Bosnia. But since childhood, he had watched them struggle. If you arrive as an adult, everything is harder, he said: “The first thing you’re thinking is fear. Everything seems completely foreign. Your potential starts to fade.”

Yet, his parents always had an underlying confidence they could make it big, he said. They carefully built the structure for a middle-class life. “It was, ‘American dream, here we come.’ ”

Ismar knows his mother is the family powerhouse. He said, admiringly, “She lights up a room.”

To please her, when he was younger, he thought about becoming a doctor. “But that interest faded away in eighth grade,” he said. He began to think he wanted to find a career he would really enjoy. That making money should not be all-important. “I thought, ‘What’s one thing I’ve cherished more than anything?’ ”

When he was two and a half, his grandmother got him his first video game. All through his teens, he thought about narratives: “I liked a story that was complex, emotional—or just weird and funny,” he said. His favorite characters started out heroic, but then became vindictive and cutthroat.

It helped that his friends were also taking singular paths. One was going into fashion; another wanted to be a music producer; another hoped to go into sports medicine.

Ismar put together a PowerPoint presentation.

It included a history of gaming. Different genres of video games. Specific companies he would like to work for. And potential salaries.

He presented it to his father first. Sitting in the living room, Hajrudin listened quietly. “He was in awe, shocked,” Ismar said. He had no idea a programmer’s salary could start at $100,000, or that it is a profession with its own hierarchy.

Then Mersiha joined them.

She sat in the dark, wide-eyed.

At the end, both parents burst into applause. “We’ll always be with you 100 percent,” Mersiha said. “You can go for it.”

But the whole idea of moving West was trickier, Ismar said: “They couldn’t imagine their oldest child going on an adventure to somewhere they’d never been.”

They spent the next two weeks talking. Ismar took pains to explain himself: He planned to work as he completed his master’s. After graduating, he hoped to get a job at a top video game company, based outside Seattle.

Hajrudin was impressed by the strength of his son’s desire. And by how confident he was that he could take care of himself.

But Mersiha was skeptical: She saw him as an idealist. Faris, though younger, seemed tougher, more practical. Better able to take care of himself.

“Ismar is very pure,” she said.

But again, Mersiha thought about her aunt’s stroke and heart attack. And about her mother’s life cut short. She did not want to stop him.

Mersiha saw a strong link between herself and her firstborn: “Ismar has his dream, I have mine. He can do it; he’s very persistent.”