I was extremely lucky as a child.  I grew up in a home with a mum and a dad who loved me and with a brother that, well, let me just say that he loved me (or maybe liked me) sometimes.  Then when I was 19 I got lucky again when I met my natural mum and dad.  I have forged a good relationship with my natural mother and my natural brothers and sister not the same as with my adopted family but a good relationship nevertheless.  Unfortunately I lost my adopted mother in 1995 and my dad a little while back.  I still see my natural family as often as we can arrange it (well I did when I lived in Australia anyway) but my little family had become very tiny indeed.

One of our decisions to move to Turkey was to enable Daughter to have a relationship with her Turkish family and learn about her Turkish heritage.  Not every child can grow up to have the best of both worlds but we intend to give Daughter everything that we can.  So moving to Turkey it would be.

My luck continues in Turkey with family as well as I had a mother-in-law who I adored and a father-in-law who is a little batty but still a sweet old man.

My cup overflows so to speak.

Over the past couple of weeks my mother in law had had a cough.  Nothing drastic but a niggling cough that over time slowly got worse.  She had made numerous trips to the doctor and to the hospital but the cough was always there.  She still cooked her delicious meals and she still called me down “J-j-j-a-a-a-n-n-n-e-e-e” every morning for cay.  She still washed her husband’s clothes, made him dinner every evening and went to visit her friends in the village.  But you could see she was not strong.  Her smile was not as bright as it once was and her steps a little slower than they once were.  Her eyes showed more sadness but her heart was still full of the love that she gave to her family and friends.

On New Years Day my sister-in-law again took Refika to the hospital one last time where she fell into a coma and soon after passed away.  The sadness I feel right now is overwhelming me.  The tears that flow are real and pained.

I will delve further into this on another occasion but right now the feelings are too raw to process clearly.