I can’t believe how lucky and unlucky I am. I am lucky because I was a colleague, friend, and companion of his. We met when we were 11 years old in a summer school and we were together till his last day, our last day. He was always a supportive of me. We went to the same Anatolian High School. He got on the school service with a sandwich in his hand and test book under his arm for 7 years. I got involved in his discipline. Moreover, we were studying in the department of our dreams at the same university. He was always disciplined, successful and skillful. Not everyone knows that studying hard is not enough to graduate from the architecture department. You must have discipline, self-confidence and most importantly you must have eyes wide-opened to the world and a brilliant brain so you can follow and understand the professional production being renewed every passing day. Your heart and conscience must be clear not to work for money sharks that have no environmental concerns. Those that build freak buildings through violations of human rights, and forget the existence of other lives. Maybe I could not have done this if I do not have such a strong friend with me. I learned my occupation from him.
I came home in tears many times. Everyone suggested to me that I leave this profession. He was always with me, he made me remember my potential, and he encouraged me as he always did. We sat around the table many times while he was drawing his own project as well as criticizing mine. Now I am studying for a doctorate in urban studies in Germany. I have been working for a Project of the Conservatory Building. The person, whom I consulted even about the syllabus of my lecture I instruct in the university, is not with us anymore. I lost my friend and colleague in this selfish, individualist world. They MADE US LOSE a person who made me love my occupation.
I did not lose my colleague only; I lost my companion and my life. We were having breakfast in the garden of a home located in Resit Galip, I had a cat at those times, and it never left the home. Yaser had a tabby cat adopted from streets, his cat was going out immediately after it ate its food. “Yasercan, I called him like this, if I have a child later, then my child will not go out and s/he will spend his/her childhood at the computer, and your child will go out and experience life. Is not obvious by our cats?” I said. “His/her uncle will make him /her realize life” he said…
I am unlucky because I mire down, my child who will be born later, will grow up without this uncle. I write this text not to finish the story like this while I tell the story of my child’s uncle, the story of my colleague who believed in a fair world, had professional ethics, and even left his job due to its damage to history and to cultural heritage.
Did I not know the person whom I walked together with since we were 11, the person that taught me to hold on to life, my profession and my dreams? I am as sure about his mental health as I am sure about my own. I am sure that my fellow, colleague, who spent his life loving and being loved, proving in every minute an opposition to people who think that life is all about breathing, did not give up his life. If a judge will show courage looking at how the act was committed rather than the act itself, then justice will see the dark story that made him sink into despair and stole him away from his favorite thing “life” in 21 days. Every passing day without facing this dark story, will make this dark conscience, acting illegally in the name of the law, stronger and that dark conciseness will turn off the light in other people, maybe even the people that are closest to you, people you love.
Master Architect
Sinem Yardimci
