The letter is somewhere. Stefan Cebara is certain he still has it among his belongings, no doubt tucked away for safe keeping as he later moved all over the map playing the game that has become his life. It’s a note that dates back some 16-17 years now, back to when Cebara had just started to flash his soccer skills in and around Windsor, Ont. “I was about 12-13 and I remember being at a game and my dad was there to watch. He told me afterward I got some mail,” Cebara told CanPL.ca. “When I got home there was a letter from the Ontario Soccer Association saying that I didn’t make the provincial team. That was a heartbreaker for me. It was an emotional day and I can remember crying because it’s obviously not the news you want to hear. “But that’s when I really got motivated. That day I took that letter and I put it under my bed. I said, ‘I’ll show them.’ It was my determination to prove them wrong and make my dream of becoming a professional soccer player and playing for my country a reality. I did that seven years later. “I took that letter personally because at the time it was everything I wanted. I had felt like I had let my parents down and I didn’t want to do that. “That’s why I kept the letter under my bed -- it was motivation for years.” The letter and Cebara’s reaction to it provides a revealing snapshot to his mindset then, and the man he has since become. But to fully understand his determination and drive we must rewind further back, back to some of his first memories as a child. Cebara was born in Zadar in Croatia, the second child of Miroslav and Mirjana. His parents were of a mixed marriage -- his father is Serbian, his mother Croatian -- and back in 1995 when the war for independence was raging a union like that was frowned upon. Feeling unsafe for a number of reasons, Cebara’s parents -- who worked as exporters of fruits and vegetables – packed their son and daughter Valentina, along with grandparents, aunts and uncles into the truck they used for transportation of their goods. The details and the meaning behind the war and why they were being driven from their home were far too complicated for a four-year-old to understand. But during the 10-day journey Cebara did recognize the sounds of gunfire, of military machinery in the distance. And he could certainly see the fear and concern in the faces of his parents and other adults. “My memories are short and vague. But I remember the struggle,” Cebara said. “It wasn’t an easy time for my family, especially my parents. They were dealing with family separation and not being able to see their families for months, even years, during the war. So, the whole experience was much tougher on them than it was for me as a kid because I didn’t really know and understand the full grasp of everything that was going on. “I remember the day we fled. I remember sleeping in the mountains and forests as the tanks rolled by. We would sleep in what we thought would be a safe area for the night, parked somewhere in the dark. All you can do is pray to God that you wake up safe. “You never know who or what you might run into at that time. There were a lot of bad things going on and so you never knew who you were going to run into. It was definitely gambling with your life. “I just followed my parents,” Cebara added. “I didn’t know what was going on. They had experienced so much more tragedy than I did then. I was just happy to be alongside them and to have them keep me safe at that time.” The Cebaras spent the next two years living in a relative’s home in Serbia while they waited for their paperwork to come through from Canada – the country his parents had chosen over Australia and the United States. They arrived in Calgary in 1997 with $150 and no friends or family anywhere nearby.
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