Love and Love

For this past year, and this new year, I am always grateful for Tolga. What an unexpected gift – a gift that is precious and complicated. Something I have to protect by remaining vulnerable. Something that we together have to stand side-by-side, knit together, while remain unflinching to our circumstances. I tend to flinch pretty easily, Tolga much less (possibly because of his stubbornness). I am afraid and anxious about so many things, and Tolga keeps coming back to our starting point and ending point: we have our love. It’s so simple. And easier than anger or hate or frustration. “You are so pricsious” (Tolga pronouncing precious). Bitanim benim, jenim benim. My bright. My heart. Or, when we speak with his parents, it’s the same showering of love: yavrim, kizim benim, bitanim benim. My dear, my daughter, my bright, my bride. My husband, his family – they live the scripture – “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” With their expressed love, I feel stronger, abler, more hopeful, more faith, more protection . . . we will do this together.