I have been to one Turkish funeral before - I traveled with my colleagues to the cenaze - the funeral - which was a sterile, impersonal, and terrifying in the absence of hope in Our Redeeming Savior.
There is one place that most everybody is buried in Ankara at the edge of the city. A mosque is within the cemetery of graves and markers all facing Mecca. Prayers were being sung constantly in a general offering that I couldn’t understand or follow - so I just opened my hands and bowed my hands when others did. Some would go with the coffin to the grave to be buried - but the mosque was like the mall with so many people coming and going and caskets rolling by. I still have so many questions about what I saw and experienced that day - but I purposely never asked.
Today I did. I wasn’t attending the cenaze as it had mostly likely already been done. Muslims are most often buried within 24 hours of death. The day of, and the days after, family and friends come and go from the cenaze ev - to give condolences, to keep company, to tell stories, to pray, to eat - whatever is needed, whatever will bring comfort. I asked Anne what to do. As a foreigner, nothing was expected of me - but I knew bringing food was a common gesture, and I wanted to do something. I didn’t want to bring something vain like blueberry cake or lasagna or some other obnoxious foreign food. Anne suggested börek, to buy a box from the pastry shop - but it felt impersonal and insincere to bring store bought food. Zuleyha offered to make spinach börek and I took her up on it - the gesture of food was to offer comfort and share their grief - it was our prayer for them.
Onur’s home was just down the street from ours - a half mile down a steep hill. I knew approximately where he lived from sharing the bus home with them for a few months. I took a chance on an apartment building, found a his last name with no apartment number listed and rang the bell. The door clicked open and while I was still unsure as to whether this was the correct building, or even what floor and door I was heading too - I could hear the echoing latch of door open on the floor above me through the open stairwell.
The door was swung wide open and five or six people hovered in the foyer, trying to place me. In my nervousness, I said his name wrong when I asked if this was the right place - but one of the women graciously corrected me in English. I didn’t know, or at least remember, Onur’s parents - but I knew the mother when I saw her and couldn’t hold back tears when I said basiniz sagolsin - health to your head.
The mother’s eyes welled up and she hugged me and thanked me for coming in English, remembering who I was an introducing me immediately to the others in the room. Aunts, cousins, Onur’s twin and their older brother. I could see their kitchen was full of food and I handed off my bag to one of the aunt with the warmest smile, and followed the women into the living room. The living and dining room had been converted to accommodate guests with dining room chairs dutifully lined up around the huge room. We sat on the couches and sofas, one of the younger cousins bringing tea and serving the borek I had brought. The mother informed me she was in the midst of retelling what had happened. I didn’t know exactly what happened, but I felt uncomfortable listening in - did it matter? Does it help?
But as the mother spoke - she spoke in English - she was angry, but her anger wasn’t deep, just fresh. Onur had gone to a friend’s house - there were four of them in total. The friend’s parents were gone - out of town actually. The boys were drinking, they say Onur was playing and jumped from the first floor balcony. The ambulance driver called the mother at midnight, the family gathered at the hospital, and Onur died at 4 am Sunday morning. Why were the parents gone? Why did they let their son have friends over? Onur was a sweet and smart boy - he would never do something like that - why didn’t the police question the boys more? In middle school he was bullied, he was not like the other kids - he was kind and sweet. I don’t believe he did this, I have too many questions.
Eda, his twin sister, was sitting next to her mother, staring at the floor. I asked her how she was feeling. “I am sad,” she responded in English. I hugger her. Of course you are. She did well to say the obvious because I could feel her numbness in spite of her words. The older brother was sitting in a dining room chair away from the women, also looking at the floor - but his emotions were more visible on his face. The father walked in, apologizing and excusing himself to take care of the paperwork of death.
I thought it would be the mother, or the twin sister, that would really get to me - but it was the father. The women had each other - in spite of everything, there is something rich to this. But the father was older - his hair white, his skin sagging and wrinkled, and his eyes read. Who could carry the grief of child lost? And a father? I had never considered it equal to a mother’s loss, the child of her womb - but I saw it in the father - love and hope, a future shattered, his blood - his son - his heart. Who could share a man’s grief?
I only stayed for a short time. We shared stories. I had been his fifth grade teacher five years earlier - I have had about a thousand students since then, but he was one of the few that I remembered. The mother was gracious to me, remembering that I had taught them, and even that I had got mad at the bus driver for them. Stupid things, but I guess we hang onto whatever we can.
I had to go, but I wanted to sit there all day - I didn’t want to escape death or their pain - it felt right to be there, to share the loss. We made spontaneous agreements for me to visit again, or for Eda to escape up the street and watch our kids - plans to not leave them as they are, in this grief.
I had written a note to the family. I know lots of things are said in these times - some things meaningful, some things to simply fill the empty sad places. But I also know how important theses community of words can be - how fleeting they are, but how they can encourage the soul and I always think it a shame for such important words and gestures to be lost because we don’t need them today, or tomorrow, or when everyone else is saying them. We need these words to each other always. It’s not vain, it’s necessary. I put the note in the bag that I had delivered the börek. I hadn’t told anyone about it - shy to give it publicly, and hoping in quiet moment it would mean something, and she’d have that something whenever she needed it.
One of the aunts handed me my dish back, with tears in her eyes she confessed,
“I read your note. I’m sorry - I know it wasn’t for me, but I just found it in there and read it. Thank you for that. (Turning to the nest of women that were escorting me out the door). It was really sweet. She wrote a note to the family.”
“I will read it. Where is is? I’ll read it, I will, thank you for that.”
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