"It had been a long time since I entered that house. How many memories I had accumulated there, in the house of my childhood. When had this much time passed? When had everything I had experienced turned into nothing but memories? How had the days I used to excitedly leave through that door and visit the homes of my neighbors suddenly become so distant? Had my anxious waiting for the postman as he passed by, wondering, 'Will he come to our house too?' now become just a dusty memory on a forgotten shelf? I had grown up, though I didn't even realize it...**
When I slowly opened the door, I saw that a small part of the wall visible in front of me was covered with cobwebs and dust. The light pink color was no longer visible, hidden by the dirt. Yet, I remember how much joy there was the day my father and I painted that wall together. I remember the splatters I made when I dipped the roller into the paint can and spread it across the wall. Our laughter echoed in my ears. I had really wanted it to be pink. I had begged my father day and night to get rid of the white on those walls. The moment he finally agreed could have been the happiest moment of my life. That day, my father and I had gone into the city to buy the paint. I had hesitated between two shades. Both were pink, but one was darker than the other. After much deliberation, I chose the lighter one. Then, we went back home and took the brushes and rollers from the basement to start painting. I thought back to that day again and again. My mind was becoming cloudy. I couldn't remember much anymore. Well, I had grown up now... though I hadn't realized it.
When I fully opened the door, I scanned the dusty pink walls with my eyes. Then, I moved on to the living room, where we spent most of our days. My eyes lingered on the divans. Most of them were no longer usable. Due to the dust and spider nests, sitting there seemed difficult and disgusting to me. However, there was one more divan. It was quite sturdy and 'clean' looking. I slowly sat down on it. My eyes wandered to the stove, which was in the right diagonal of the couch, and I gazed at it for a long time. I was trying to remember something. 'Start the pot,' my inner voice said. I thought I might remember at least one memory. Surely, I could remember at least one, right? After all, I was still young and dynamic. I focused a bit more. I was sure something had happened with that stove.
After thinking for a while, I remembered. As the memories rushed into my mind, I excitedly exclaimed, 'Yes!' 'Yes! I did it. I remembered!' Wait, let me tell you that memory. I remember... I wasn't very old back then. In fact, I don't think I had even graduated from elementary school. One day, during the cold winter season, the snow had reached all the way to the window ledge, making it impossible for me to go outside. But that day, I was going to play with my best friend and neighbor, Asiye. I had been telling my father this constantly, and on that day, my mother had returned from outside with chestnuts in her hands. As she was dusting herself off at the door, I had wondered about the bag she was holding. When I opened it, I closely examined these little things I had never seen before. My mother smiled, reached for the bag in my hands, and called out to me. 'It's your first time seeing these, isn't it?' After nodding yes, before I could ask 'What are these?' she began to speak again to answer my question. 'These are chestnuts in the bag you're holding. In a while, we'll make a hole in their shells and place them on the stove. Then we'll eat them.' The sound of my hands clapping in joy echoed in my ears. After that, we did exactly what my mother had said. Our laughter as we ate chestnuts by that stove could never be forgotten.
I had risen from the couch. I started walking with the stove behind me. After leaving the living room, I entered a new room while searching for pinkness among the dusty walls. I had entered the kitchen, a place where my mother never left and where she made us taste new flavors every evening. It wasn't hard for me to remember our memories here. I was just unsure of which one to choose.
That day, while walking home from school, I saw the postman in front of our house. He was wearing a sweater, as though we couldn't escape winter, and there was a look of tiredness on his face. He seemed to be complaining about the exhaustion of reaching our remote area, a region consisting of three houses up in the mountains. I had seen him taking deep breaths. He pointed to our house and asked me who lived there. I had gotten very excited. When I told him that my family and I lived in that house, he took a large envelope out of his old, damaged leather bag. It was bigger than the other envelopes. He asked me to give it to my mother, and after thanking me, he quickly left. After dropping off my bag in our room and removing my black apron, I ran to the kitchen to find my mother. She was there, leaning on the counter with a book in her hand: *Green Night*.
My mother was a well-read woman, and she always told me to read. 'Read, my daughter, read. Read and make the most of the opportunities that come your way, dear. Read and don't live a miserable life, my dear.' She would always give me advice. She would tell me how difficult it had been for her to read. Afterward, she hadn't been able to make the most of the opportunity. She said that was the thing that hurt her the most in life. Therefore, she had promised herself never to neglect reading and never betray the efforts she had put in during the old days. Almost every week, she would go down to the city to buy a new book. After finishing a book, she would tell me all about it.
When she noticed I had entered, she placed the book on the counter and looked at me with a loving expression. In her eyes, there was both a smile and an unspoken depth, a weariness... She asked me what was in the envelope I was holding. I quickly told her about the postman and me. Then, she smiled broadly, saying that the envelope she had been waiting for had finally arrived. The envelope was for her. My curiosity increased even more.
When my mother opened the envelope, she pulled out a ton of separate sheets of paper. Each one was filled with handwriting on both sides. The writing was slanted to the right. When I looked at my mother, she looked so happy. She seemed about to fly with joy. When I looked at her with pleading eyes, asking her to tell me what had happened, she smiled and explained. It turned out that all these papers had been written by my aunt, who lived far away. These papers contained many recipes. According to my mother, these recipes had belonged to her mother, and when my grandmother passed away, my aunt had taken these papers with her. When she found a cook for her home, she had wanted to pass these recipes to my mother. She had sent her a telegram beforehand. My mother had been eagerly waiting for these recipes ever since. When she told me this, I was so excited that I couldn't wait for my mother to prepare dinner so I could try new dishes.
This memory, too, found its place among the dusty shelves of my mind. Now, those recipes are in my home. On special occasions, I make wonderful dishes created by my mother, adding little touches to my grandmother's recipes. As I walked from the kitchen to the living room, I thought again. This house, where I spent so many years, now felt so distant that it only became familiar when my memories brought it to life. This warm house, where my childhood passed and our family stayed together without any rifts, was now so far removed from that warmth. Because what had once warmed this house—our family—could never come together in this world again. Neither my mother nor my father could come back to warm this house with me. They had fallen into a deep sleep after doing everything they could, after realizing that I no longer needed them... Since that day, the house had started to grow cold, as the firewood the memories had burned to keep it warm slowly ran out.
I had already left the kitchen. As I walked towards the room, I realized there was a door I had left closed behind me. I turned around and realized I had missed the bathroom. When I opened the door, I realized I couldn't enter the bathroom anymore. It had been unused for years and couldn't really be considered clean. But still, a memory came to mind—the time I had waited eagerly in that bathroom.
That day, when my father was leaving the house, he told me to wait in front of the bathroom door after I changed when I came home. He promised he would bring a surprise after a while. I had spent the whole day thinking about that surprise. 'What could it be?' I remember not being able to pay attention to any lesson because I kept thinking about it. I was so curious that I knew my expectations had gotten too high and that if they weren't met, I would be very disappointed and wouldn't be able to be happy about my father's gift.
As soon as I got home, I changed my clothes and, before starting my homework, waited impatiently in
front of the bathroom door, exactly where I am now. When I heard the door open, I turned my head, eager to see the surprise. My father warned me, 'Close your eyes, my beautiful girl. I'll be right there.' I couldn't resist, but I did as my father asked. I closed my eyes with my hands and waited for him to come.
When my father reached me, he was out of breath, as if he had been running for a long time. He told me to open my eyes, and as I did, I saw the tiny dog he was holding in his arms. While my father was grumbling about ruining the surprise, I was ready to fly with happiness. This dog... Was it going to be our pet?
I hugged my father with love and thanks. Then, we went into the bathroom and gave the dog a nice wash. When we held water for it, it ran around me before diving back under the water. My first pet had been a dog. I still remember its name... 'Is it possible to forget?' my inner voice asked. I agreed with it. My brown dog, Patsy -short for Patience- , I miss it so much. Yes, my father had named it Sabır because he said that the patience I had shown while waiting for him should be rewarded. I thought it was a beautiful name... Patsy...
After leaving the bathroom door behind, I entered the last room of the house: my bedroom. When I opened the door, I saw my parents' bed intact and firm, but my bed was broken and scattered. The sight of my bed, torn apart and scattered around, hurt my heart. It caused more tears to flow from my eyes. After walking around the room a bit, I sat on my parents' bed. I tried to recall a good memory, but I couldn't. Then, I remembered a memory I had created in my head when I was a child...
I had always wanted a room of my own. I had never been able to tell my parents this wish. I can't remember why I didn't say it. Anyway... Every night, I would dream of lying in my soft bed surrounded by pink walls. I would dream of Celine sometimes staying in my room, playing with my toys, and laughing until morning.
On holiday mornings, I would wake up and run to Celine's house. She had her own room, and it was beautiful. There was even a stove in her room. It was never cold. We would always play in her room. We would do our homework. When evening came and I separated from her to go back home, I would think about how much I envied her. She had her own room... How wonderful that was.
With these thoughts, I completed the tour of the house. There were hundreds more memories like these. The time when we bought our first stove, the time I came home from school with high marks and we made potato prints on the walls, when my mother made a cake for my birthday, and so many more. All of them were locked away in a room of my memory I hadn't visited until today. Now, the shelves were no longer dusty. Now, the house wasn't cold anymore. With every step I took, a new piece of wood had burned. This time, as the memories added up with every piece of wood that burned, a new memory was created."
Once the parts where my grandmother had told me to read ended, I closed the diary. I looked at my grandmother. The skin above her closed eyes was shining... She was crying. Her eyes were red, and at that moment, I regretted having found this diary in the basement and reading it to my grandmother, who was lying in the hospital bed. As a tear fell from my left eye, I spoke, regretfully, "I'm sorry, Grandma. I didn't mean to make you cry." As I tried to stop the tears flowing from my eyes, I completed my sentence, interrupted by sobs. I stood up and went to my grandmother's side. I hugged her, and after a while, I experienced a shock. I started hearing a high-pitched sound from the monitor beside her bed that I had never heard before. I rushed out of the room with wide eyes, calling the doctor with a crying voice. The doctor and nurses hurried toward the room as I turned back to my grandmother. A smile was on her face.
A few seconds later, as the doctors escorted me out of the room, my fear increased. "Please..." I thought. "Please, don't let anything happen to my grandmother." As I silently prayed, I noticed my parents running toward me, full of fear.
When they reached me, they asked what had happened. I told them what had occurred in the last hour. "When I visited my grandmother, she seemed fine. Yesterday, she asked me to bring her a notebook. So I brought it..." I couldn't speak. Tears flowed from my eyes, making it hard to speak. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I tried to continue. Showing them the notebook, I spoke. "This is the notebook. It was my grandmother's diary. She asked me to read part of it. So I did... It contained writings about my grandmother's return to the house where she lived with her family when she was young. Every time she entered a room, a new memory came to her, and she wrote them down. I don't know when she wrote them, but she mentioned that she wrote them when she was young. After I finished reading, I looked at my grandmother. Her eyes were closed. She had a strange smile on her face, full of tears..."
After listening to me, my parents started looking at the room with fear. I sat next to my mother, who was anxiously waiting in the chair. Her face was sad, her eyes full of tears. I thought for a long time about how I hadn't heard that sound earlier. Maybe it was because of my face...
When the doctor came out of the room, the sad expression on his face made it clear what had happened. As my crying intensified, I went to my father. The doctor had started with "Unfortunately..." I couldn't hear the rest of his sentence because I was overwhelmed with tears. I didn't know what to do. When I turned to my father, I saw that he was devastated. My uncle was the same, and so was my aunt... Everyone had received the news with tears running down their faces.
A few days passed since my grandmother's death. I couldn't be there during her funeral. They hadn't allowed me because of my age. "Is there anything more natural than being by your grandmother's side for the last time?" my inner voice screamed. Still, I couldn't go to my grandmother's funeral. Now, days had passed since the day of the funeral. My grandmother's diary remained with me. With every page I turned, my eyes filled with tears. I was reading the diary of her most beautiful memories in the saddest time of my life.
When I reached the last page of the diary, I saw a note.
"This note is my last words
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