half awake, half broken
“For the sake of god! Your father has just died, can you stop it!”
She is such a cold fish. My 52-year-old aunt, she still has soft and ash yellow hair. Her only concern is the dirt on the crystal luminaire at 5 o’clock in the morning. She makes her nephew clean it with tears in his eyes because she has those perfect napkins that clean every surface in her bag… at 5 am in that cold March morning of 2016.
*
An hour ago,
I opened my eyes to my mom’s voice, she was talking to my uncle on the phone. I immediately thought about my grandfather who has been at the hospital for three weeks. This was the first time that I remembered my grandfather had gone to the hospital, he was so scared of hospitals. He begged us to not to go, and we begged him to go. Would he ever go back to home? If he wouldn’t, my mother should have been crying; I calmed myself… She slowly opened my door; I was wrong. I called my brother, she called my father. Two agonizing calls in the middle of the night.
We all knew how this is going to end but no one was brave to tell, except his nurse;
“…take him to home, don’t make him spend his days here.”
An hour later while considering about driving 8 hours to collect my father, I see my aunt and my cousin under the luminaire…
Is this what they called trauma of loss or indeed is she heartless? None of us can tell the difference, we just watch her and her annoying concern about meaningless details. Now she is packing his things at bedroom and asking everyone if they want anything, ignoring our answers as well as her pain. Does this have to be now, just two hours after he is gone?
She gives a rosary with big brown stones to me; “You were always playing with this when you were a kid.” No, I didn’t, but I don’t say it. It was my other cousin, 7 years older than me but even I know it was her playing with it and has stitches on her head because of it. This story has been told million times…
***
When it is finally morning, everyone is gathered at home. They start calling people to tell them about the funeral. Some start planning, some are concerned about dinner. People start to come; the house isn’t big enough for even eighth children and their families and now it is crowded as hell. Two neighbors that they have lived together for 40 years open their houses for guests.
My grandma gets herself away from all and goes to the bedroom, she sits cross-legged on his bed, lights his last cigarette forgotten in front of the window. She even doesn’t know how to smoke it. One of my cousins sits at the chair near to bed; granddaughters’ spot or in his words ‘hatunların yeri’. Both were precious for him. Grandma was his beloved one but she was the only one in his life that he ever said he loved her. He had eight siblings, eleven children with three losses, twenty-nine grandchildren, and he only loved one granddoughter. I watch them for a while, one has a pale face and red eyes but no tears, other is crying her heart out.
They sit like that for more than four hours, ignoring everyone coming to give their condolences.
*
While we are leaving the house for funeral, an old man arrives. From what I understand from my uncles’ and my aunts’ behaviors, he is great-uncle. A year younger of my grandfather, namesake of my father. A wish comes from my heart to have a long talk with him, but this is not the right time, I leave with my cousins.
*
This crowd is killing me. I look around and everyone looks very familiar, I know most of them from somewhere but there is a coldness in the air…
Funeral prayer stars, I go to the back row with all the other women. Even though some people stayed at home, the funeral area is not enough for all, and the cold wind makes standing much harder. When prayer ends, a man catches my eyes, he stays behind of the crowd, turns back and walk away slowly. I hear him mutter to himself as he passes by, “He must be loved so much…”. Nobody knows this passing man, he is a total stranger but talks just to the point.
*
When most of the people leave at night, we are squeezed up in the living room. The silence despite of the crowd is scary. Everyone is exhausted, I wonder what each one of them think behind their sad faces, but I can’t help looking at great-uncle and he finally talks;
“I have just remembered, once he had upset me for two weeks because he fell off a horse before me. Although I was the better rider, he became a groom.” He laughs as if that just happened. Ice is finally broken; our laughs can be heard from the street. He talked about everything while we listen to him like a storyteller, half-awake and half-broken…
