— Erdem GünayHavva ablanızın o incelikli ruhunu, kahve bahanesiyle kurduğu sofraları ve doğaya olan tutkusunu anlatan bu çok zarif anıyı, yine o samimi duyguyu koruyarak ve belirttiğiniz gibi tire (—) kullanmadan İngilizceye çevirdim:
English Translation
They say a single cup of coffee is remembered for a lifetime. I learned this from my sister Havva.
My memories with her, like many of us, go back to my childhood years. She was the eldest grandchild of our clan; she was already in our lives by the time we were born.
I used to look forward to her arrival at the village especially during holidays. Because when she arrived, a sense of peace and excitement would fill my heart, as if a rainbow had appeared, the sun had risen, and spring had arrived.
With my child’s mind back then, I suppose I wanted to prove to her that I was growing up and getting stronger. I remember climbing the terebinth tree, swinging fast on the swing, and perching on branches to set up a swing, presenting all these “talents” of mine to her.
But the memories I really want to share are from much more recent times.
Once in the village, Burçin and I had bought a bag of coffee to drink filter coffee. We went to my sister’s house to brew it. She already had an opened pack, so we brewed from that; but we left the pack we bought with her and did not bring it back to Istanbul.
What followed is a story I will never forget for the rest of my life. Amidst all that work in the vineyards and gardens, did you never get tired, my dear sister? Did you never have a moment of forgetfulness? Every single day, you would invite us so beautifully just because we liked filter coffee. If I had known that every sip of those coffees we drank was numbered, I would have sipped them slowly. You were such a thoughtful person that you would offer everyone exactly the type of coffee they liked.
And then we had our talk about flowers. Knowing how much I love flowers, she would take pictures of the beautiful blossoms she encountered in the mountains and fields and send them to me. I, in turn, would send her pictures of my own flowers.
Recently, I saw the almond orchard from a distance, the one she had been working hard to grow for a few years. Since the cold did not strike this year, the almond trees have bloomed beautifully; but unfortunately, because my sister left us too soon, she could not see them. The bitterness of this will always be within us.
I cannot find a single negative, pessimistic, or ill-intentioned incident in my memory regarding either my sister or Abdullah. I say to myself that there must be at least one, they were only human after all, but I simply cannot find any.
How quickly we have lost you both…