Eulogy for my father, Hasan Tahsin Erezyilmaz
My dad lived during a better time than the one he left. As he became a teenager, the world wars were in the past. Fascism was defeated and new democracies formed in former colonies, full of optimism. Antibiotics cured the major diseases and modern medicine extended life far beyond what had been in the previous century. Facts mattered and science was respected. The earth was a greener, fresher place.
When my dad was eleven he left his small village to live on his own to attend school in Istanbul. He was later accepted at the Turkish naval academy and became a naval officer. Dad left Turkey to explore the green, optimistic world, landing in the provincial port city of Seattle. He met my mother and was anchored there and until she died, a few years later. He told me that living the suburban life in America had been an adventure for him. I can barely remember my mother, and so dad has been my only parent. We weren't really a 'family', more like a team of two.
Perhaps because he had lived in two very different places, my dad had a clear and independent way of understanding the world. His politics was an eclectic mix encompassing the safety net of socialism, a cosmopolitan respect for different points of view, respect for his fellow humans, environmental stewardship and a love of the American entrepreneurial spirit. He did not inherit his outlook - it was derived first-hand from what he had experienced in his life. And his views governed his behavior. For instance, while he lived in Duvall he became good friends with a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, named Steve, who tried for years to convert him. I recall overhearing in one conversation, Steve suggested people did not respect his proselytizing. Dad stopped him saying, “I have a great deal of respect for you, Steve. Your convictions bring you out here every Saturday to tell people what you believe. Few people have that kind of faith”. Dad was also a feminist. I was brought up with stories of how bright and capable my mother was, and his sisters are. I saw how angry he would become when someone would imply that being a muslim should be in conflict with his support of the advancement of women. As part of being a feminist he had high expectations for me, and he would not accept failure on my part. Dad’s love of the natural environment began when he was young, playing the forests around Bogazkoy, Turkey. His last home in Seattle was in the temperate rainforest in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, which he has left in its natural state.
My father said so many things to me while I was growing up that will change the way I deal with life’s hardships. For instance, when someone I was in love with dumped me he said: rejection always hurts Deniz, but try to separate your feelings of rejection from what it is that you actually lost. When I was thirty-five and felt like there was something wrong with me because I was single and childless, Dad told me: having a child is NOT an accomplishment, Deniz! Having a PhD IS an accomplishment. When I felt like I wasn’t seeing results in my work, despite working hard he said: Sometimes working hard doesn’t make a difference, you usually have to work hard for a long time to see any benefits.
The last year of my dad’s life was very hard. Few people realize just how hard it was. It took all of his grit and mettle to help him recover from the stomach surgery. Last fall he spent over two months in the hospital waiting for his stomach to ‘wake up’, unable to eat anything. After a big group effort by friends, family and neighbours my dad did make a full recovery from cancer! In March this year he was strong enough to go ‘bush whacking’ with a machete for hours through the thick brush on his property. He spent hours roaming the area, telling me about the state of the beaver lodge, the migrating birds, and the young fish jumping in the pond. When it was difficult to buy fresh vegetables because of the Covid lockdown, dad began cooking nettles that he had foraged from the forest. After 6 months of optional chemotherapy, the doctors could not detect any cancer at all. We all assumed that he was healthy, but nobody saw him first-hand because of the pandemic isolation orders.
As miraculous as my dad’s recovery was, fate threw another obstacle at him. Something was causing progressive brain damage, making it increasingly difficult for my father to navigate the world. A week before he died, he could not name the current president (which is actually very clever of him). But he kept his charming personality and his dry wit until the very end. It was a fall that ultimately killed him. When I helped him up, he asked me: Did I scare you?
When he retired, my dad built a house that many people admire, and it will be a monument to his memory. In addition, he set aside 20 acres of forested land so that it can progress back to old growth forest, long after his death. My Dad also lives on in his grandsons - every time I look at Cy and August I see the shape of his head in their profiles. And thankfully, Dad has passed some of his personality on to each of them. My fathers’s poetic wit lives on in Cyrus; both of them are able to capture the world beautifully in words without trying to be poetic. Like my dad, Cyrus can be an open-hearted listener. In August, I recognize my dad’s nonchalance and self-sufficiency. And like my dad, August will sit and stare at a problem until it is solved. I am grateful for the time my dad had with my little boys, and I hope that they will remember him well.
The week before my dad died felt like the backdrop for Armageddon. Families huddled in their homes, hiding from a second wave of pandemic. The air was thick with smoke from wildfires and it was unhealthy to breathe. All the color of the world seemed dull. I will miss my dad terribly. I will try to raise my sons in his memory during this bad new age. But my father belonged to a better, kinder time that is now over. Rest in peace, Dad.