A native of Hatay, RC Turkish teacher Müge Gümüş lost many close friends and family members in the earthquakes. She began writing as a way to process her grief and trauma, and penned this letter to her beloved city.
I never thought I'd write a letter to you. I never thought I'd lose you along with my loved ones. You had thousands of stories, and I was just one of them. I loved getting lost in your thousands of years of history. I always went on long journeys knowing that I would come back. We used to ease our fatigue from the big cities by leaning on the existence of Antakya. Antakya used to say, "If you can't do it over there, come back, I'm always here."
The meaninglessness of losing everything and everyone you've worked hard for and held on tight to for your entire life slipping away in just a few minutes, and the helplessness of those waiting for good news from afar... So many people struggling in life... Many people from Antakya will come along, wherever you go, you will find Antakya and its people again... When I return, the desire and hope to invite all neighbors, friends, and family for a bitter coffee, to wave at them from the garden with a smile, and to organize gatherings in Arsuz during holidays to find my loved ones there will always be with me.
The soft-hearted people who were ready to embrace each other, invite each other into their homes, and the jasmine-scented streets, with their unique recipe featuring pomegranate molasses, were left crestfallen, with broken hearts. The wind in Iskenderun is famous, and the split ground had swallowed the jasmine flowers that had fallen from the trees. The neighbors who lost their 40-year-old friend under the rubble had neither a table nor the mood. They had left the joy of the table behind and continued the broken path.
Our mourning is so strange. We mourn for thousands of people in our society and the land we consider sacred. Have the streets where I spent my childhood, the playful and festive times, and Antakya's "mosaic" culture been replaced by a pile of rubble? Losing oneself in grief while holding on tightly to that history and the multicultural structure of those ancient lands with hope and faith... Those who know Antakya, will know that in Antakya, at certain times of the day, the sound of church bells, the call to Muslim prayer, and the Jewish cantor blend into each other.
Farewell childhood memories... Farewell jasmine, bougainvillea, honeysuckle... Farewell to the windy and wavy Arsuz air and sea that the sunset leaves behind in the afternoon... Farewell to the burning sensation of carrying the tray kebab and to the smells of freshly- ground coffee on the whole street...
Farewell to everything that makes Antakya what it is. But only for a short time... Wishing to return to the roots as soon as possible, in a more cheerful, attuned-to-nature and resilient way than before...
Published July 2023
