Rana was born in Antakya and spent her whole life there, where her entire family lived. After her graduation from ACG and Istanbul University Faculty of Law , she worked as a successful lawyer in her hometown.
When we arrived at ACG in 1966, those of us who had not attended the middle school there felt somewhat foreign, being thrown amongst a group of young ladies who had known each other for the past five years and were used to ACG’s different ways and customs… One day I remember seeing a tall, shy young lady, with golden hair, whom at first I took to be an American. She was taller, thinner, blonder and gave me the impression that she too felt like a stranger, invading someone else’s home, as was I.
Three years later, when Betty Kondayan, our fabulous English lit teacher, was reading T.S. Elliot’s “La Figlia Che Piange” to us, trying hard to make us capture the images the poet’s mind printed into words, I still remember that it was Rana's image that popped before my eyes, standing "on the highest pavement of the stair", to "weave, weave the sunlight in your hair". She had that light golden wispy hair that one would never wish to tame into a chignon, or, a ponytail, for the thin rays of gold might catch fire and blind one’s sight.
I had not seen Rana in many years, she had her life far from most of us. But the most recent picture of her deepens the pain of her loss for our class: a woman of accomplishment, an attorney, a loving mother, wife, daughter, with a big smile and much love in her heart. Maybe there could have been time for us all to hug her once again, to say all those silly things that we tell each other when we meet. Those of us who are lucky, for our imagination to still "compel many days and many hours…"
We are very deeply saddened by her tragic loss, together with her husband, mother and sister on February 6, 2023, during the earthquake in Antakya.
Our beloved friend is survived by her son, her daughter-in-law and her grandson
- Contributed by her ACG 70 classmates Ligia Sariçyan Jamieson, Fatoş Bozkır Balioğlu and Gülrü Selek Paksoy
Published March 2023
