I don’t where she is now. But for some reason I will never forget those words said by our anatomy teacher, Ismail Ulutaş, who had the startling resolve to continue teaching us among all the conflict and the chaos.

“Before you actually examine your patient you should make your initial assessment the moment you see him or her at the door. Because every patient has his particular way of walking, a particular look and a particular smell.”

I was under the impression that I got my first whiff of death from the cadavers in our anatomy class, but I was wrong. That’s just the smell of formaldehyde. The real smell you get in the autopsy room.

It’s a fall day and I am in my fifth year doing an internship in forensics. An entire family from Manisa has eaten a jar of homemade preserves made from eggplant.

But a powerful poison had come to life in the conserves: botulism. All seven of them died instantly. They had lined up the three kids side by side. A woman in a long black dress from the Aegean leans over the children, kisses them, breathes them in and keens:

“My lambs … My lambs …”

*

Only a few days left till graduation. It’s the last chance I have to pass pharmacology. I am so stressed I am even thinking about dropping out. On the top floor of the house in Avanos I am buried in my notes, cramming for the course. At one point I step outside. I smoke a cigarette next to the pond. Reluctantly I pluck an overripe apricot off a branch—it tastes more like a şekerpare than a piece of fruit. Taking in the scents of the garden, I look absentmindedly at the swaying trees.

Slowly I go back upstairs. Stepping into my room, I notice mom inside, gathering up my scattered class notes covered in scribbles and medicine formulae, breathing them in and kissing them as she mutters prayers. Holding back my surprise, I watch her for a while. After kissing and breathing in my notes in the same way she does for the pages of our Koran, she sets them aside. In that moment I understood: I have to pass this test and finish school even if it kills me.

*

I am in Istanbul. Watching the gathering of the Saturday Mothers. Once again it’s Saturday and I have Poyraz on my shoulders as I listen to a mother making a speech. Hüseyin Morsümbül’s mother is talking about her daughter Fatma. Hüseyin was still in High School when his house in Bingöl was raided by police and soldiers, and he was taken into custody.

For 30 years his family has struggled to learn what happened to their son. Appeals written by his mother Fatma over the course of 31 years were never filed and then destroyed.

Hüseyin’s mother always said:

“If I could only find the bones of my son I would carry them on my shoulders. How I miss his smell.”