The explanation is..

Some of you may wonder why do i decide to lengthen this talk of anne? For one thing, she is the sweetest soul u could have ever met and she deserves to be talked about. But the main reason why i am doing this is because.... remember the picture of anne holding hatice in my *ulya babaanne* entry? When I showed that picture to halil, as he was looking at the picture, i was looking at him...I saw or more directly sensed this yearning..this feeling of missing her..... so i thought why not? Why dont i make her alive for a while the only way i know how....my blog... So for this week ..till friday night, my blog is an ode to anne.

When i came to istanbul, i had no idea of whatever..i was clueless of the customs, the norms, the way of behaving, ...clueless in all sense. Cooking for example was one of it...Actually the biggest problem of all for me. No 1: Did i know how to cook? NOPE! No 2: Have i actually cooked at all in the real sense all my life? Let just say cooking rice using the rice cooker was among the cooking i actually had done. I thought i would learn cooking before getting married. My mom is a wonderful cook. I thought I would learn from her.

And suprise suprise.. not only did i not know how to cook Malaysian food.. i got married to a total stranger with a totally different food culture!! Great move simah!! *chuckles*. As i said, I was clueless of cooking turkish food. After I came to turkey, everyday, we ate at anne. I did not cook anything. That was the time I was starting to be exposed to the type of cooking and the type of vegetables I never knew existed.Thru halil as my translator, I asked everyone..especially anne of the recipes of whatever i ate.

After the honeymoon, I started to experiment with cooking..(I cut my hand that first time cooking and that news spread everywhere!! hehehe the new bride is starting to cook!! hahah)...Yenge and yenge (muyessa and mahtura) were great help since they live the levels below me (level 2 and level 3) .

Cooking..yes i was learning. But did i cook ? I suppose so..everyday. But where did we eat most days?? At Anne's of course!! There I was, a new bride, sharpening my cooking skill...cooking at home and still eating at anne!! It was a real wonder that anne never told his son to dump me hehehehe.. The truth is anne cooked a lot everyday..Anne and kerim (he was unmarried at that time)..together as a team, they cooked enough to feed an army! I think her way of thinking was...*at any time, any of my sons and their families may turn up for dinner. So i better be prepared*...and yup, she did!! everyday!! ..And I took advantage of that. Not everyday of course..but too often enough.. I wanted to get used to her cooking actually. I wanted to actually learn how the taste of her cooking would be. (For 3 years?? hahaha simah) It was important for me coz halil grew up with her cooking. To cook differently would mean to challenge his tastebud and he might not like it.

7 months after our marriage, i got pregnant...still we ate there..and then when hatice was only 5 months old, i got pregnant again with baddin..With hatice everyday crying wanting to go to her babaanne (over there she had fun since her mese hala was always there as well entertaining her), we took the advantage of dining there as well....Dont get me wrong, i cooked at home..but somehow it felt just nicer to eat at anne. Like i said, not everyday but very often enough.

And all those while... she never say any bad things to me directly..no complaining like...*go eat at ur own home* or *what kind of a bride are you?*.. nope..she never did. Even if she did say, i would have deserved it totally. But she never did.

When i told her about my feelings on this (that was i think a year before she died)..about me always dining at her....she just told me *Estaghfirullah yavrum...ben çocuklara birlikte mutlu oluyorum* (I am happy when i am with my children).

Halil and I were also like her second shadow.. where ever anne and baba were, We would be there too.. we even went on vacation together!! (poor anne!! hehhe) After all, halil is her youngest boy..anne's little boy cannot be separated from his mommy hehehe

Now that i think about it, i am glad I dined too often at anne.. I am glad halil and I were following where ever she was like a shadow..I am glad for what i did though treating her house like a restaurant was wrong ( That i do have to admit). I had only almost 3 years to get to know her..and for that short years, she had made a great impact on me. And just think of the impact she had and has on those who have known her all their lives..

My only regret is...when i was in the kitchen talking to her one day..i had wanted to tell her this..but my language was weak at that time..i could not utter what was on my mind...What i wanted to tell her was...

*Anne senin hakkın helal olsun*
(Anne halalkan segalanya)

I know it is too late. But with every doa i sent her, I prayed that Allah will also send her this one message.. This one message the living anne never did hear from me..