Spring Forever

 

By the Aras river just off the border with Armenia is a tiny Turkish village not many heard of and even fewer cared about until not that long ago.

 

Ayazkesti was somewhere nobody went to unless they had to, except for the casual smugglers stopping for supplies or seeking refuge from the sudden blizzards that ravage the unworldly terrain in winters. That is, nonetheless, where Bahar is from and where her greatest benefactor in life, Ayhan, lies buried today. From there, she feels, he watches over all that comes to pass as she became a pediatric surgeon and chooses to lead a life worthy of the honor following his example ever since.

 

No wonder, then, that Bahar has an immaculate record as a physician for she couldn't be expected of anything less with the textbook care she has provided to her patients. During her practice for over half a century, she has never failed anyone who relied on her and has always known how to maintain people's trust unscathed. The trick, she says when asked, is to treat every child as you would have wanted for yourself for when you were as little and afraid.

 

This had everything to do with Ayhan's memory eternally vivid in her mind.

 

Alone

 

Truth be told, Bahar never knew her biological parents. All she was told about them is that they were hardworking but poor, healthy but then fell sick with a devious disease and died. That simple. She was too young to remember anything when both were in fact lost to tuberculosis under dire circumstances in 1942. Ayhan, then, was freshly off the medical school and dispatched to the closest community health center some 70 kilometers away. During harsh winters annoyingly long in the mountainous region near what was then a part of the Soviet Union, he often had to travel on horseback to treat all those he could. 

 

It was after such an exhausting ride under heavy snowfall when he met Bahar as the only child of this severely ill farmer couple with a Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Ayhan did everything in his power to help them recover but modern medicine was remotely as able against tuberculosis as it is today and there was certainly much more to discover about its pathogenesis. Bahar was left an orphan. Alone.

 

Grateful

 

Growing up an orphan himself, Ayhan couldn't remain indifferent to the misfortune of this child who was then barely able to walk. First, he offered to pay for her care and then for her education as well. Regardless, Bahar was initially placed in an orphanage in Van, the closest city with such an institution at the time. Ayhan was there when she was handed over to the authorities and he never stopped coming back for her. 

 

"Does she have friends? Is everyone good to her? How can I know if she needed anything else but won't tell you?" He could go on and on, sometimes appearing frantic with his questions about how she fared without him present.

 

Bahar was fine though. She got used to her life at the 'castle' as she and her friends called it. She was doing rather well in classes, too. It was only that Ayhan's visits started to mean all the world to her as she grew up and it was eating him up inside, too, that he had to leave her behind every time. She used to wave at him until he could no longer be seen as he walked away quietly sobbing. This is why the same year when she turned twelve and he became a public health specialist, the adoption papers that finally came through made such an unforgettable present to both. Neither could be happier.

 

This was how the two were forever bonded and Bahar started to observe a terrific doctor function both with and without a white coat on. Outside school hours, she never missed a chance to join him on a health screening mission to another distant village where swaths of disadvantaged people needlessly suffer from conditions that are otherwise fully treatable. Of all that Ayhan was involved in professionally, her favorite, though, was the mass vaccination campaigns. By then, the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine -- which could have saved her parents' lives if they, too, had been inoculated -- started to be locally produced and became more available to those most at risk. It was now much less likely for another child in the region to go through what she did. She was glad. Grateful.

 

Torn

 

Half a dozen more years went by and the two had traveled to several times as many towns and villages in the impoverished area. Mesmerized with the beautiful impact health workers have on people's lives and dignity, Bahar couldn't be more inspired to become a doctor herself and the news that she was accepted to a top medical school in Ankara brought much joy to their home in Kars. That it also meant separation for the duo was the only downside. 

 

The trip to the capital used to take about a whole day in the 1960s but securing a phone line for those disconnected by such distance could sometimes require even longer spent in the pursuit. So they wrote to each other. And they wrote a lot but never even once could either of them expect to hear anything mournful regarding each other. Everything was perfect. Until that day.

 

It was Wednesday, January 23rd, 1963, and Bahar had returned from a busy ER rotation at the university hospital as a fourth-year medical student. The telegram came in earlier and Bahar's roommates had no idea how to break the news to her. Knowing that she must have tended to more trauma patients than she could remember, they decided to wait for her to wash first and shrug off the worst of the day's tiredness at least. It was only then they found the courage to deliver the brief message they wished they hadn't received. It was from one of Ayhan's closest friends. 

 

"Dear Bahar, it is with the heaviest heart that I have to tell you that your father has passed. A true calamity, I know, but we must stay calm sweetheart. We must stay sane and carry forward the torch he has handed us. This is definitely what Ayhan would have wanted. Please come..."

 

Bahar couldn't read the rest. She was devastated. Torn.

 

Martyr

 

It was only after she arrived for the funeral that Bahar could learn more about what happened. 

 

Ayhan and his colleagues were in a neighboring town when they received a call for help from Ayazkesti regarding a first-trimester pregnancy. What they thought to be a subchorionic hematoma had already caused a significant blood loss, they were told, and both the mother and the fetus could die if they didn't intervene. So they hit the road without hesitation and were able to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient until they arranged for more advanced help. Relieved with the life-saving aid they managed to deliver, they wanted to go back without delay so they could make that happen as well. On the way back, however, they were hit by a massive avalanche. The rescue teams couldn't reach the area the whole night. None survived.

 

Despite the circumstances, Bahar saw it fit to choose a burial site in Ayazkesti. She thought that Ayhan's grave should be a match for the modest life he has chosen. Besides, it was where Ayhan risked everything to get to in his last act as a public health specialist.

 

The villagers were humbled by Bahar's decision and took it upon themselves to quickly turn Ayhan's grave into a tomb by which they tell every visitor without fail that a great physician, a hero has been bestowed upon them here. A martyr.

 

After his tragic loss, winters in Ayazkesti are still long and freezing but, the word has it, every child born here has an outstanding example to look up to now and is doing their best regardless of the weather. It is forever spring in their minds.