I Thought It Would Always Be This Way

She was sitting in a corner, trying to make sense of what was happening. Her clothes were covered in dust; she looked at her bare feet. It was obvious she was still in shock. What had she been through? What had all this been? All she remembered from midnight was a rumble and a collapsing ceiling. She couldn’t even remember how she had managed to get outside, or from where. Who had brought her here—or had she come by herself? Her ears were ringing; the shouting and running around her had numbed her mind.

She was alone, as if she were in an entirely different world. Or as if her plane had crashed on an island and she was one of the few survivors. She glanced around with empty eyes. A shiver ran through her—she remembered nothing.

She looked at her hands, at her palms; her eyes caught the dirt under her nails. For a moment she remembered crawling, dragging herself along the ground…

She didn’t know how much time had passed. But suddenly her husband and children came to mind. Where were they? She leapt up in panic. “My husband, my children!” she cried. In an instant, the shock seemed to fall away from her. She immediately ran toward the ruins where her home had stood. “Oh my God!”

They had lived on the second floor of the five-storey Daisy Apartment. There had been three apartment buildings standing side by side: Violet, Daisy, and Rose. “Dear God!” she said, holding her head in her hands as she began to sob uncontrollably. Aunt Ayşe’s home, Grocer Remzi’s shop, Sister Aynur from the next building…

“My husband, my children, my home!” she said. Her voice faltered. She felt her knees give way and sank to the ground. Everyone around her was rushing about. “It’s as if the end of the world has come,” she whispered. “But why am I alive?” ran through her mind. She quickly gathered her strength and began frantically searching for an opening among the debris—but it was impossible…

Three huge apartment blocks, thirty flats, lay on the ground like a house of cards. There was no building left, no garden in front of it, no little pergola in the garden. Only a month ago, Mr. Hüseyin had refurbished that pergola. Almost the whole building had gathered there for tea despite the winter cold. What conversations, what laughter had filled the air. Everyone had thanked Mr. Hüseyin for fixing it without expecting anything in return.

But now the pergola was gone, and the buildings too. She ran to the other end of the ruins, desperately looking for an entrance. “My husband, my children!” she called, shouting their names: “Ahmeeettttt! Eliiiffff! Emreeeeee…” But everyone else was shouting too. She searched for a way through the rubble, crying, calling their names.

For hours she searched among the ruins, begging for help from those who came near. Survivors were rushing to help others. The chaos lasted all night.

She had no idea how many hours had passed. Her hair was disheveled, her hands and feet covered in dust. She tried to warm herself around a fire burning in a tin can. When had she even come there? She pulled the blanket someone had placed on her shoulders tighter around her. She realized she was cold.

They were gone. She hadn’t found them. Neither her husband Ahmet, nor her daughter Elif, nor her son Emre…

“Lord, help me! Lord, help me!” she whispered through her tears. She slipped on a pair of slippers she had found among the debris. Still nothing. Her husband and children were still missing. She searched for them while trying to help with the rescue efforts. She clung to hope: she would find them, they would be brought out.

By dawn she was exhausted. She dozed for a moment by the fire, but in that brief sleep she relived the tremor again. She startled awake.

When day broke, the full reality was revealed before her eyes. The entire neighborhood had been leveled. “This must be the Doomsday my grandmother used to tell me about as a child,” she said. She had never experienced anything like it. They were gone. All night she had called, shouted, clawed at the debris with her bare hands, but… No, no, no.

Rescue workers were rushing about, pulling people from the wreckage. She cried and prayed at once. “Lord, help! Save them! It’s so cold.”

Days passed. Aid arrived, clothes were distributed, a tent had been found to shelter in. People from the neighborhood and her extended family were sharing the same tent. Her heart ached; still no news from her family. She couldn’t sleep at night… She looked around. “What a sobering sight,” she said. Those who had boasted of their wealth and those who had lamented their poverty were now together. Everyone huddled around the same fire, embracing one another. In the same tent, the same food line, the same soup.

Four days had already passed. “I have to accept reality now,” she said. But still there was no sign of her family—neither alive nor dead. She stayed near the ruins of her home. She helped with the rescue work while waiting for news of her loved ones. “If only one of the rescue team would call out, and I could go fetch my family,” she thought. “If only I could take them by the hand and pull them aside…”

But it didn’t happen that way. It was now the fifth day of the earthquake. First they found her daughter Elif. Then her son Emre, and her husband Ahmet…

The truth hit her like a slap. She looked at the three bodies lying side by side. She swallowed hard, and these words fell from her lips:

“I thought I’d be happy when I had a home,

But it wasn’t enough; I said it’s too small, it should be bigger.

I thought peace was in a big house.

Taking a hot shower, drinking hot soup—I thought my life would always stay this way.

I thought my family would always be with me, that we’d always live together.

I thought I’d always read my books and drink my coffee in the evenings.

I thought Aunt Ayşe, whom I greeted each morning,

And Grocer Remzi, with whom I chatted in the evenings, would always be in my life.

I thought every evening when I came home I’d hug my husband and children.

I thought my parents, whom I called every evening, would always be at the other end of the phone.

But nothing was as I thought.

Everything was fleeting.

The homes I called spacious—how cramped they were.

A mattress, a bowl of hot soup—how precious they were.

My children’s voices—my joy.

The sounds of my neighbors—my safety. How wrongly I worried…

Peace is a treasure we already have.

The things I fretted over were meaningless.

The value of those in my life—

More precious than anything else.”

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Experiential Design Teaching is a knowledge community that produces strategies for designing our future based on past experiences.

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"There is only one thing in life that can never be discovered; The better one..."

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Yahya Hamurcu