I was looking at the checkbox which said “Have you ever had a near death experience.” and I was thinking about the one I experienced at that very morning. Things got pretty personal that day.

We started with our names. We shared a lot about ourselves without noticing it. It’s funny how our names can tell so much about ourselves. I don’t ever think about my name at all. But today, it led me to someplace which I didn’t expect.

My name comes from my grandfather. It’s a tradition in my family that the firstborn son takes the name of the grandfather and the firstborn daughter takes the name of grandmother. My father’s name is Ali, and my grandfather’s name is Halil. His father’s name was Ali and his father’s name was Halil — so it goes. I didn’t think much of it, but I always liked how my name made me remember my grandfather all the time.

My sister’s name is Fatma which also was my grandmother’s name. We lost her this year. My grandmother was very special for me. Come to think of it, I never said it out loud that I missed her nor did I accept that she is in fact dead. She’s gone. “She’s no more” as Python’s used to say.

One of the other lines on the practice was about suicide. So many of us know someone committed or attempted suicide. I wondered if they would’ve to commit anyway if they felt loved at some point. I wondered if they wrote about their feelings would that helped them. Emotions are very hard. We don’t understand them. But it makes it more bearable when we share it with the people who care about us.

Maybe this is it for me. Maybe I was waiting for this moment to say it. Or maybe the support and acceptance I got today made me open up about my grandmother. Because I keep thinking about the checkbox. One of the other lines said “Have you ever feel loved” and I saw two people that didn’t stand up. Two people never felt loved. I wanted to reach out to them and hug. (Maybe I hugged them during the other practice. I hope I did.)

I ticked that box. I felt loved because of my family, especially my mother and my grandmother. I wished that those two people knew my grandmother. I wished that they could’ve heard stories from her. I’m sure they would’ve fallen from their seats of laughter. And they would’ve felt loved. Because she loved everybody, not just me. Her energy made people jump up and down from excitement. I’m saying these but of course, she wasn’t an angel of some kind. She had flaws too. But those flaws didn’t stop her making me feel loved and taken care of. I’m not a religious or any kind of spiritual person but I truly hope that they would find someone like her. And I hope that they would feel loved at some point.

If I go back to the near-death experience part, the thoughts about death always made me think of my parents and that I should visit them more often. But life gets in the way, doesn’t it? Life always gets in the way.

Emotions and the experiences we get are very challenging all the time with all of us. Life is just a rollercoaster of a ride with ups and downs. We need to acknowledge every moment of it. We need to own it…

And we need to visit our parents more while we still can.