That evening my mom and brother come from the airport. I don't know what condition I will find them in. I hope they wont cry. But even if they cry, I know that I will be strong for both of us.
Muammer, another friend of ours, has gone to the airport to pick up my family, so they enter the room laughing and talking, as if coming to a regular family gathering. We hug. It almost feels like coming home. Mom is very strong. She smiles as she looks at me. The only thing that tells me something is awry are my brother's tears that swell up, as I hug him.
Mom tells me that from the moment they told her I had a stroke, she had the feeling all was going to be well. It was with that feeling she spent the last 16 hours on the plane.
After I left my mom and dad behind in Istanbul to come to the US - ten years ago, I have always feared the worst with every ring of the telephone:
'Someday, my brother will be at the other end: "I have bad news." he will say, "We lost Dad -or- Mom." ' Then I will feel a deep regret, not being with them in their last moments. A deep deep regret...
How life throws curve balls when you least expect them. Who would think that my mom was going to be at the receiving end of the telephone?
It is already 11 pm at night. Mom and Emre (my brother) go home. Mehmet, my husband, stays with me at my bedside. For the past three nights he hasn't slept much either.
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You are lucky to have such a supportive family. My husband's family did not come to visit him for a long time. His younger sister finally came, but only to tell him that he needed to get better, because he was the strong one in the family, and they all needed him. Not the support he was looking for.
He finally pretended he was asleep so that she would stop spouting such nonsense and go away.
I am proud that I was by his side the entire time. 5 months pregnant, and I slept and ate next to his bed for the 30 days he was in the hospital.
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