Quite often, I see in the newspapers photos of the White House in Washington DC. It is a symbol of power and freedom to everyone, a sort of a guarantee, a promise of a better life for all the people. But most of all, I am fascinated by the whiteness of the stone it is made of.

What is interesting is that my old grammar school in my hometown of Sibenik is made of exactly the same stone as the White House.

But to me, our old grammar school "Gimnazija" is much more than just an old school. My father went to "Gimnazija". When I turned six, I started my first proper school classes in that old building.
When I was eighteen, my grammar school graduation was held in that very building - to me, the most beautiful in the whole wide world - my "Gimnazija".

Years went by, my life continued far away from my homeland. One day I saw on TV terrible photos of Manhattan. Destruction of innocent human lives, their work, hopes and dreams.
I remembered then, how my daughter as a determined and feisty little girl used to watch every day on TV shows, serials and movies about America, New York, Manhattan.

It was her dream then to go and live there on Manhattan when she grows up. She "decided" to have her own jewelry shop, "mostly diamonds of course" as she liked to say. It cheered me a great deal to hear my little girl talking about her "great life plans".

-As a -teenager she too went to Gimnazija and then she learned that this building was made of that same stone as the White House in the country of her dreams where she were one day "to have her jewelry shop".

September 11th hit hard, I was most deeply hurt because of all those innocent people and also that feeling that somebody had just swept away all those beautiful dreams about new greater life that my little girl had. That day I felt an even stronger bond between the powerful White House and our Gimnazija that are made of that same brilliantly white stone from island Brac in Dalmatia
my faraway homeland Croatia.
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