my life support left this planet three weeks ago. a cancer that ripped her up and she couldn't find help quick enough because of the COVID chaos in Turkey. it is an abyss, a vacuum and a depth of sadness i have never felt in my life. i feel like i am drowning and i have forgotten to breathe. she was someone i spoke to every day at 4.30 pm, evening for me before D's bath time and morning for her when she had her first cup of tea...the other day i panicked that i had no videos of her talking, that i would forever not hear her voice and in time forget it....and then i found two where she is talking to D, for a few seconds. i watched it and was relieved. i would not lose her voice. yesterday i remembered D's educator having taken photos of us dropping her off at daycare two years ago. i asked them if it was still in their iPad. clutching at recent memories. my brother said he realised the word anne has retired from his vocabulary....i feel so egotistical for wanting her alive, she was in unimaginable pain, did not want to worry the kids till her last breath. the afternoon she went home from the hospital and i had not spoken to her for five days, i connected with her through reiki as i lay in bed. i said through my screams that she had been an amazing mother, a best friend, a wonderful grandmother and that i would miss her to eternity but this was not the life she deserved, that suffering until death was no life at all and if she needed to go she needed to go and not look back because we were now the people that she had envisioned us to be. and 14 hours later as a new day dawned in Turkey her heart beat its last beat. my head rattles and shakes in disbelief. the strong quiet soul who walked tall and proud and yet humble and kind who brought me here cannot be gone.
