Danc­ing Alone

Will my four siblings and I be able to build healthy relationships with others after years filled with hate and violence, if neither our parents nor their parents were able to do so? One day in summer my sister Ilknur comes home late from the public swimming pool. My mother Beyhan confronts her and starts beating her up. Ilknur pulls herself away and runs out of the kitchen. Mother grabs something at random and throws it after her child – her husband's offspring. Ilknur is hit in the back. She winces. Then a tinkling sound. A sharp knife falls to the ground. Ilknurs back gapes open and her lungs are visible. A sight I will never forget: A pink cluster of quivering corn sized pellets. When I am 12 years old I decide to go into a home and leave my previous life as the only one of my four siblings. My parents are finally getting a divorce in 1994. My father Mehmet is convicted for battery and rape a few years later. He goes to prison and is deported back to Turkey in 2001. The entire time my father is trying to maintain contact to his children, from prison as well as from Turkey. Today my siblings and I are adults and mother is a caring grandmother. She smothers my sister's children with tenderness. My sister has always stayed close to my mother. I now understand: You can't go anywhere without taking your past with you.