11.11.2013
I go back to the end of 1980s even in the deafening chatter of my lovely crowd at my mother’s house. In mid-80s, my husband Zeki had already introduced me to his friend Mehmet and his wife Saniye, who had just had a baby then, our dear Ekin. We had recently moved to Izmir from Burhaniye, a resort town along northern Aegean, where I had worked for two years as a brand new Ministry of Health family doctor at a mother and child health care center. Saniye and Mehmet made me feel like I had known them all my life, I still vividly recall the weekend we spent together at their house. How could I have known then that they would have become two of my closest friends throughout my life? They did become indeed, which continued when they moved to Izmir in the end, and nowhere but to our neighborhood...
When we moved to Izmir, my husband was hired by a company where one of my childhood friends Levent worked at. My history with Levent went all the way to our toddlerhood... In fact, his paternal grandmother and mine were neighborhood friends from Crete, where my entire family emigrated to Turkey from. I remembered how our grandparents chattered in Cretan like machine guns (so it felt to me when i was barely in elementary school) when we were kids. His father and mine had grown up together and both had become carpenters, whose wives (our mothers) also had become friends. I recall, our visits to their home in Bayrakli, one of the old town sections of Izmir at the very end of the bay. They lived in a two-story typical old Turkish house, which I admired. How could I have known we would also move into an even older, stone Greek house one summer, only to move into another one in a month due to the enormous size of the former and my poor 21-22 year-old mother being too scared to live in that huge house.
Levent and Suzan
Levent during our meeting tonight will bring up the second house of that summer we lived in. It was adjacent to the railroad tracks and an open movie theater. The screen was right behind our house and sitting on the window sill of the back room, we were able to watch the movie every night. It was quite fun for us kids of course, it must not have been so for my mother. At the end of the summer, we were back to where we came from in Karsiyaka. Our parents must have decided, where we had lived was not that bad after all. Isn’t it what happens in life in many situations: Especially, young people wonder the world to find out what they had in the first place was not that bad after all… Some on the other hand travel far far away to find independence and freedom to grow and flourish. I think what happened to me is the latter in life.
My honorary pediatric patients, who've now grown to become wonderful adults
Levent introduced his girlfriend Suzan to Zeki (my husband) and I. We liked her right away, she was soft-spoken, sensitive, and quite fun. We started socializing. It was several months after we met her, they came to our house one night for dinner. All of a sudden, Levent uttered "Find an apartment for us from this building or next, so we can get married, too, will you?" We were kind of surprised, but nothing compared to the expression on Suzan's face: She was stunned, understandably, since we would learn in a bit, this was Levent's proposal to her! And she accepted... It was a wonderful and an unforgettable moment (I still remember where we each were in our apartment when this very conversation took place). Moments like this; being witness to such an intimate moment of friends’ history that make people best friends I guess. We couldn't find an apartment for them right in our building, but in about .5 km or so, thus, we became neighbors for a long time, from 1988 till 1998 when I left Turkey and moved to the USA. Their daughter Gulce was born in 1989 and became not only my surrogate daughter but also my patient in my pediatric office, one of my precious patients a member of a slew of kids that were my honorary patients: Ekin, Mehmet and Saniye's daughter and Umut, Yildiray and Aysegul's son among a half dozen kids. I would schedule them personally to the last visit of mostly a Saturday, so that I could spend as much time as needed not only for the kids but for us parents as well. Each of these visits would end with casual friendly catch up conversations, which I treasured throughout my tenure in my private practice. It warmed my heart when recently, Yildiray sent me a message and asked me about Umut’s immunization status! Umut being 28 years old now, I felt sad that I had not kept his card but transferred his file to my friend Demet, who took over my private practice when I left Turkey. Fortunately, when Umut visited us this past fall in Iowa City, I gave him all the info he needed to get his missing immunizations in Austria.
The last team that joined our group was Yildiray and his family. Yildiray was a friend of Mehmet and Levent and thus became a friend of Zeki. He happened to move to our neighborhood with Aysegul, his wife and Umut, his son. Umut turned out to be my daughter Zeynep's age! Yildiray was the "baba" (father) figure in our entire group. Always mature, coming up with good ideas on everything, dependable to the T! Aysegul was a "mother" figure, taking care of all our needs when there was nobody else to take care of them, child care being one! In the end, she would indeed start a home day care and become the care provider of all our kids except for Zeynep, whose care provider was my mother already. I "fell in love with her" the moment I met Aysegul and she never failed me! Zeynep became their surrogate daughter, especially after her father and I split, Yildiray played a very significant role in Zeynep's life.
More importantly, Zeynep and Umut grew up together sometimes fighting, sometimes sharing, sometimes teasing, but mostly in full camaraderie and loving each other. When we left Turkey in 1998, they were both 13 years old, but fortunately, they kept in touch through the years including face to face meetings in Istanbul or Izmir especially during Zeynep's study abroad for a year in Istanbul several years ago. Every time we meet, we share so many stories together that crack us all up… I won’t share these here, though, since there is a ban on such stories in public from Umut! Our children grew up to become competent, well-trained young men and women. Umut now is in the sales management field at an international company, working in Austria, my daughter is going through her medical education in the USA, Ekin, Mehmet and aniye's daughter is in investment banking in London, Gulce, Levent and Suzan's daughter is a lawyer, going into international studies in Istanbul. The last offspring, Baris, Ekin’s brother, who was barely a few years old when we left Turkey is in college in Istanbul as well, whom I hope will also connect to us all down the road.
My brother and his wife
Just as I am going through all this in my mind, we have gone through quite a bit f food at the table including the main dish, hungarian chicken paprikash. For some reason, Yildiray postpones his main dish claiming "I'd like to go slow..." that is the t=rhetoric at “raki sofrasi” while drinking raki. In the mean time, I share with my friends the crystal candle holders I brought for each family. I will keep two of them at my mother’s house and each will get two to take home so that at every house we get together from now on, we will light candles at the dinner table. these candles will be aflame in honor of the light of our friendship that enlightened our paths for so long. It turns into a touchy moment. Suzan and Aysegul are in tears, I can barely hold them back. The guys, as expected are trying to lighten the air with jokes and teasing statements, but I can tell everybody is feeling the same: We all know how precious our friendship has been for all of us. It is such a priceless experience. What is almost more important is that our kids also share the moment with us. Their faces are full of light, understanding, and love, just like us... We know they will carry the banner of communal sharing, appreciation and bonding to the next generation…
 |
| where can one fall asleep like this but HOME? that's how we all feel at each other's home at all times... |
No comments:
Post a Comment