He isn’t in his
usual position smoking a cigarette on the couch looking out the window. Instead,
he is lying on the couch, sleeping. I doubt his hands could hold a cigarette
now. They tried different things to make him better. He doesn’t look better. He
looks like cancer ate him up into a skeleton.
I am 8. I am
looking at my uncle realizing this is probably the last time I see him. I don’t
remember when exactly I learned what death
was, certainly I am aware of other people who died. But at that moment, for the
first time, I really understand what death
means; not just the
detached awareness of it as something that happens to everyone, but all the
emotions that come with it.
My parents tell
me it is time to leave and to say goodbye. I am unsure if they mean it as the
last farewell or a regular goodbye, but I can’t take chances. I approach my
uncle. I want to hug him like E.T. hugs Elliott just before he departs to go
back to his space-home. At 8, that is the only “we likely won’t see each other
again, and I want you to know that I love you” farewell I know. What is the
best way to hug him as he is lying on the couch? Would it wake him up? Would it
hurt him? Should I just kiss him gently on his head or cheek instead?
As I am deep in
my thoughts, his hand suddenly reaches for mine and grabs it from the bottom.
Then, he puts his other hand on top. He squeezes my hand tightly. He can’t
speak. But he says his version of “we likely won’t see each other again, and I
want you to know that I love you” to me and relieves me of the burden of trying
to figure out the “perfect farewell.”
Now I know there
are no perfect farewells, and it is a luxury to have a chance to say “farewell”
to a loved one before they pass away.
She is 6. I want
to hug her properly to say goodbye, but I have to be content with a quick side-hug,
because she just saw her best friend at the school entrance and ran to her.
Last night, while playing the Hello Kitty video game, I was her best friend.
Next time I see her, likely a year later, there won’t be a Hello Kitty game.
But I hope I can have a permanent place in her life, at least as her (cool?)
aunt.
About 5 hours
later, I hug her mom tightly to say goodbye, before I depart for the airport to
go back to my life in Copenhagen. Her mom is one of my best friends, my Twin
Sister. I wish we lived in the same city like we used to, but I was the one
who left that city first.
This hasn’t
gotten easier, even though farewells are a routine part of my expat life for
more than 15 years now. In addition to my visits to Turkey to see close family,
I try my best to arrange once-a-year-visit to certain loved ones who neither
live in Turkey or Denmark nor go to the same conferences. It takes effort, I
have to organize my work schedule and life in Copenhagen around this. Before
each visit, I wonder whether this is too much effort at my age now. After each
visit, all the doubt disappears, and I am left with bittersweet tiredness.
I hug her tightly
and say, “We’ll keep in touch.” I wish I could think of something smarter to
say. The truth is I don’t know when I will see her again. She is going back to
her home country, Argentina, tomorrow, after ~8 years in Denmark. Argentina
isn’t in Europe, I can’t go there every year, and there are low chances that
work will take me there.
There was a possibility
that the Radiohead concert last night was going to be our farewell. While that
sounded cool in theory, the reality would have been us saying each other farewell
among the super-packed post-concert crowd moving toward public transportation. Once
again, there is no perfect farewell, but we are both glad that we didn’t
have to do the post-concert farewell.
This is technically
our 5th farewell. We did one at my place to say farewell to all the movie / TV
evenings we had eating take away food from Wokshop Amager. We did one at
Husets Biograf, where we went to the movies together for the first time
and our friendship was formed, which was also her farewell to Huset. We
did one at her place, which was my farewell to all the peaceful time I spent
there with her and her family. And we had a farewell dinner with a group of
friends.
She has been my
#1 partner-in-crime in Denmark. We moved to Copenhagen around the same time. We
met during our early days in Copenhagen. We bonded over our shared love of
movies and political/feminist views. We referred to the couch next to the
entrance of Husets Biograf as “our couch”. During the first COVID
lockdown, she was the first person I arranged to meet in person after almost
one month of isolation. She had my extra house keys. …
The third book
of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan
Novels is titled Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. I love that
title. (I adore the books.) I am used to being the one who leaves. I
left my parents in 2005. I left Illegitimate Daughter in 2009. I left my
academic family in 2014. I left Twin Sister in 2017. This is the first
time I am the one who stays, and Sister in Movies is leaving. I
know she is leaving for a good reason, I left for good reasons each time and
had no regrets after. I am happy for her, but I also know that I will miss her.
I miss her. I
miss them.
