By then, it was time to go to the funeral. I found three small plastic bags and filled them with a few handfuls of dried mulberries, some pieces of pestil, and a few dried prunes. “Come on, let’s go,” I said. As they were burying my father, I placed the bags on his coffin. The peasants from his village had brought him the snacks he had longed for.

When I sometimes remember Pa and his village, or when I happen to pass by an Anatolian village, I always imagine my father, turning and turning on the sled in the threshing field.

Excerpt from Ebru: Reflections of Cultural Diversity in Turkey (Metis Publishing, 2007) and Babil’den Sonra Yaşayacağız (Aras Publications, 2000).