Coming back from Turkey

The final month and a half of 2011 tested my mental and emotional strength. 4 days after my last blog post on the 11^th of November, I was quickly packing chocolate and ‘get well fast, come home’ notes into my backpack at the Zurich airport and hugging friends goodbye before getting on a flight to Turkey. I breathed slowly as I waited through a stopover in Istanbul and then an anxious taxi ride to the hospital in Antalya before finally donning medical scrubs, hair net, face mask, and shoe covers to be able to walk into the intensive care unit to see Tilmann at 2 am. Through tears of joy, I knew I had made the right decision to go, though the time to follow was a dark cloud of the unknown.

36 hours prior, Tilmann and his best friend, Johannes, were driving down a mountain road in Southern Turkey. It was mid-afternoon of a cool and rainy day when the car fish-tailed out into the oncoming lane and was crushed on the side by an oncoming car. About 7 hours later I got a first message that they were in a hospital. Through deep panicky breathes, I began to contact key people: the embassy to translate what the doctors were saying, and a close friend of Tilmann to inform the families. The phone calls continued non-stop as we, so far removed and feeling so useless/shocked/scared/protective/rational/irrational, were desperate for any more minute pieces of information which could provide comfort. However, it was late, the embassy was not responding to any calls, and there was nothing we could do but wait. Tilmann was stable, but no one knew how Johannes was.

I sat in stillness before going to bed that first night. Trying to slow my breath which had felt so heavy, and yet so empty, for the last hours. I gazed out at the dark empty street, so much silence and peace. I felt nothing but exhaustion. I am too rational to worry myself with the worst case and I knew I had to sleep to do whatever I needed to do tomorrow. I closed my eyes and wished everything I had left to them, to their families, to the friends.

We didn’t know until the next morning, the 15^th, that Johannes had passed away. In fact, we didn’t find out until a day or so later that he had probably died immediately in the accident. But in that moment, when the news was passed around, there was not the necessity for details or a need for words at all. I lost my breath for a moment, hoping to withstand the crush of sadness. I gasped a breath in, hoping that it might literally draw my friends and family nearer. I sobbed out an exhale, trying to release the unbearable shock. There was a shared feeling from Germany to Canada to Switzerland to Turkey that the warmth of life had, unexpectedly, unnecessarily, unjustly, been drawn away from us, like a freezing cold wind snapping at our open hearts, wrapping itself around our bodies, and paralysing us in this singular thought.

Thank goodness for the flood flow of being a citizen in a society and insurance companies. I snapped back into reality from the need to inform, organize, and delegate; all sufficient in distracting myself, at least superficially. Several hours later, my flight was planned and the centre of operations would move to Antalya.

Now 36 hours after is happened I was there, and it got very real. I went into overdrive on the duties: phone calls and emails to family, friends and his work, waking up with the nurse visits every 3 hours during the night, constantly refilling the water cup, preparing his food tray, helping him walk around, sitting patiently nearby when he rested. It was all so necessary, so helpful, and so therapeutic for both of us, for different reasons, in order to keep moving forward.

However, it was all just movements in between the moments that needed the most work; the ones that were dark, quiet, and overwhelming. Thinking back, the days all blend together in that hospital room. Each moment was unique and raw, as it was a space we could just let ourselves think in quiet and feel any emotion without any other stimulation. Sometimes all was so still, our emotions so dense that we could not feel any or all. We were in a room in Turkey, overlooking the city, out to the mountains and sea. What was that place beyond? What life goes on from here? Who can comprehend what happened? How is the path going to unfold?

We’re a species that adapts in a crisis, so as the days went forward we sought out normalcy in our daily routine. TV shows, German tabloid magazines, I even went out and treated myself to a 5 euro haircut. And there were moments of pure silliness laughing at kitten youtube videos or joking with the nurses. The enormity of it all did not diminish, but other things also had to come into that space. Life got heavier.

After a week, we made it back to Zurich, and back to Tilmann’s home in Germany, and through the weighted sadness of the funeral. The same still applies: The enormity of it all did not diminish, but other things also had to come into that space.

Most of the initial shock in Turkey has passed, and I can write that with some clarity. However, life after coming back to Zurich still needs time to be processed to understand how this experience has and will affect me. My reserves are low, and not every day is so easy as I work towards accepting the sadness that Johannes is gone and releasing the energy that I wound up during the last months.

Writing it here has been a tremendous effort but also so helpful in making it clear what I feel were some of the hardest parts, noticing how much my feelings have evolved since then, and marking this as how I feel at this current moment in time.

I know there is more understanding to follow, as the shocking details of death are not what is to be remembered here, but the feelings of knowing that we are truly alive.

Tilmann with this sisters, Christmas 2011

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