Okay, it sounds dramatic. But it is pretty much true. For me, the turning point, the moment I seriously refocused my life and decided to pursue writing in a way I never had before happened on May 4, 1995. I was in surgery for a heart valve replacement for 17 hours that day. And in the course of the procedure I died seven times.
May 4th is, coincidentally, my bother Baris’ birthday. I mention that because as a child I was frequently compared to him, as in “you look so much like Baris when you do that” or even just the causal mention that as my own birthday,May 7th, approached my mother and/or my father would mention how old Baris would have been – always twenty years and three days older than me. So, in a way I always lived int eh shadow of my brother’s ghost.
The day I…
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