Ode to Sevilay Terzi | Your traces live on in us

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Dear Sevilay,

Of course I never called you that, you are my babaanne, my grandmother. But I think your name deserves a place in Amsterdam and I gladly take that task. I wonder if as a child you could have ever imagined that you would build a life in Amsterdam. Would leave here four children, ten grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Or that your husband, my grandfather, would be the first to go to Holland in the 1970s and leave you with four children. You dreamed of a better life, of a home of your own. He went to work for this and you and the children stayed in his brother's house, where you could sleep in the kitchen. A year and a half later, you too were finally able to go to Holland, but then it was your turn to leave your children behind. 

You heard all kinds of scary stories about women traveling alone to Holland and being taken away by the customs police. None of that turned out to be true, people in Holland were not scary or unkind. But life was tough and you immediately started working in a chicken factory in Ede. Another child came along, but quitting work was not an option, so she too was taken care of by relatives in Türkiye.

You didn't get your own house until Amsterdam, many years later. A house of your own also meant that you could finally be reunited with your children, some 8 years later. Meanwhile, grandpa was then working at NDSM and you were working as an ironer in a clothing factory. This was just one of your jobs, for years you went from job to job from morning to night. 

You couldn't drive, but neither could you read. You did everything by public transportation in a city whose language you couldn't understand. When I asked you how on earth you knew where to go, you told me that indeed you couldn't read the stops, but counted them. 10 stops by streetcar for cleaning job 1, 3 stops by subway to cleaning job 2, and so on. Whether you were ever afraid of falling asleep? 'No, I was fine,' you replied.

We had this conversation 1.5 years ago, only then did it occur to me to ask you what it was like for you in the Netherlands. Life in Amsterdam, the city where I was born and call my home. I am still a little ashamed of this, because your traces in my city have also remained invisible to me all these years. 

When I ask you how you experienced Amsterdam you talk about a good time, about the wealth of cultures. About the Dutch downstairs neighbor and your Surinamese upstairs neighbors. About the sharing of food and the food processor you received as a thank-you gift from your downstairs neighbor. A gift you still use today. You talk about the naturalness of hard work, an ethos you passed on to your children and they in turn to us. 

You couldn't read or write, now I am paid to write words. With this, the circle is almost complete, or perhaps it will never be complete. For even though you no longer live here, your traces live on in us. And even if you can never read this letter, many others will. And thanks to them, perhaps the lines of that circle flow on until they are visible and can never be erased.

Love, Kübra