I WAS SPEECHLESS, and I STILL AM. BUT….. My feelings in picture!
By: h. nazan ışık—
24 December 2021—
My one and only brother called me from Turkey: “Sister I have been diagnosed with cancer, Pancreatic cancer it is.”
I was shocked, I was speechless!
I cried.
I went to Turkey to be with him.
While we were approaching Istanbul airport,
I saw water drops on the window. The sky was crying with me. He had a surgery, The Whipple procedure, and everything was removed. Chemotherapy started.
Doctors were happy and hopeful. But a red flag was always there.
I came back to New York.
Bad news came. Cancer spread to the liver, metastasis!
I cried again.
Wanted to go to Turkey again. I couldn’t, because of Covid-19.
I was stuck; I was the prisoner of Covid-19. Couldn’t go. I screamed in agony. I received a phone call that my brother died on 24/12/2020. Couldn’t see him.
What I felt was severe coldness…everything, every organ in my body was frozen. My brain, my blood, my heart.
The pain I felt was tremendous, like a rusty, not a sharp metal, a very rusty metal , very slowly piercing my brain, my heart, my lungs, my spine. I was bleeding inside.
Hopelessness, sadness, pain, agony, despair, feeling a terrible sense of loss. This was how I felt my face was.
I cried more…
To the point I couldn’t cry anymore.
This picture, taken in late 1970’s, breaks my heart the most. I was on a bus going somewhere, my mom, my brother and my dad wishing me a joyful trip.
And now it looks like,they were saying good-bye to me. The last “Farewell” it feels like. And sadly they are all gone!
My heart became like a stone. Senselessness, numbness filled my heart.
There is a saying: “Time is the best medicine”.
It is just a saying! I lost my mom and dad 27 years ago, and I still hear their voices…
“ Nothing works unless you do”
— Maya Angelou
One day I saw three birds, like a family, were flying together freely, happily, in that cloudless, open blue sky. Made me imagine that they were my loved ones.; My father, my mother and my brother!
I felt better……
Photos © h. nazan ışık