Thank God, the children have grown — but while we were raising them, we grew old too. They don’t care for me much anymore. What can you do? They’re your children, flesh of your flesh, after all…
From the window of a stranger’s house, I watch them without pause. They’re running and playing in the garden, never stopping. My darlings, you’re sweating — you’ll catch cold, come inside now, I say, but they don’t listen. It’s dinnertime, hurry up, the table is set, I call out, but perhaps it’s old age — somehow my voice doesn’t reach them.
The other day one of them fell, scraped his knee. Oh, my child! A mother’s heart, you know — mine ached. There’s nothing I can do from here but watch. If I try to go down to look, they vanish before I even reach the stairs.
If only they’d wait a little, so I could kiss them, breathe in their scent.
Who knows — maybe this holiday, they’ll remember me too.
Turkish original: “Yabancı Ev” on aliosmanakcaoglu.com.