A LEAP OF THE EARLY BIRD

The mischievous Aunt Remide...

Age does many things to a person. Realizing truths about life is one of them. The older we get, we begin to realize what truly matters in life. When we are young, it is important to us to be liked. We put so much emphasis on the way the outside world views us, and how we are perceived by other. Whether we are liked. Whether we are accepted. How outside forces make us feel. But along time, what becomes apparent is how we feel about ourselves and the way we feel about others. We change. We evolve. That feeling of peace we feel from withing about who we are. And what truly matters is not how many dozens of friends we can pen down on our friends list, but to how many of them we matter. Not our status, wealth, or lack of it.

Can could count the number of his true friends on the palm of one hand. That was not important. What was important was the fact that they shared a bond thicker than blood. They mattered to him, and he mattered to them. Emre was his brother, but he had a hard time opening up to him. After all, Emre wasn't around in the most important stages of his life. All the stories he could have shared with his brother, he shared with his father. His father, and his Aunt Remide. To say that Aunt Remide was like a mother to him would have been wrong. His mother left him, while Aunt Remide was there to lend her loving shoulder to him whenever he found the courage to confide his sorrows in her. She was there to comfort him when he was a child looking for a mother's lap, she was there in his adolescent years to scold him whenever he stepped out of line, which he did quite often through his rugged nature. She knew a side of him that others never knew existed. A side he chose not to reveal.

Hearing that Aunt Remide took time out of her schedule to visit Fikri Harika, Can wasted no time to come by the agency. And he told himself that seeing Sanem there would not affect him. At all. And he realized how foolish that was the moment he joined the meeting at the agency. Seeing Aunt Remide brought him so much joy. Her honest and sincere smile were one of the very few things he could trust to be real. But what else was real was the joy he felt when he saw Sanem. He tried to hide it. Which only raised Aunt Remide's suspicion. She knew the difference between a confident Can and a Can who pretended to be confident.

One look at Aunt Remide and he knew she was onto him. She was intrigued. And whenever she was intrigued, she was mischievous. And a mischievous Aunt Remide as a force to be reckoned with. Her raised brown the moment she looked at Sanem and back at him was all the confirmation he needed. And she wasted no time. The moment she found out Sanem came up with the idea for the campaign was another score on her list of things that added up in Sanem's favor. And her mention of how to improve sales sealed the deal. He knew he was done for. He did not even protest much when Aunt Remide announced the three of them would go visit a compound later that evening. After all, arguing with her would only prove how superior she was over everyone.

Just how superior she was over him, he found out not long after their meeting had adjourned. He asked Sanem to bring coffee for Aunt Remide and tea for himself. And a sad thought hit him that this may have been the last tea Sanem would bring to him. Last tea she would make for him. Not only would he have to miss her, he would also have to miss the warming taste of the tea that only she knew how to brew. He lingered looking at her. If Sanem could only read what was written in his eyes. If she could only recognize the change in his voice just then - how quiet it got, how riddled with yearning and feelings it became. Sanem left. But Remide was as touched and baffled by the sudden change in him as one might imagine. She knew Can. Really knew him. And knew how to get to that hidden layer of his heart.

She saw how quiet Can became. A quiet Can was a hurt Can. The fact that he permitted anyone to get that close to his heart spoke for itself. It spoke for Sanem as well. She tolerated Polen, but never really warmed up to her. Sanem was a different story. Remide was a judge of character. She could not have gotten as far as she got without learning to gauge a person based on first impression. Her children may have been a different matter, for one is blinded when it comes to own offspring, but she knew a good apple when she saw one. And Sanem might have just been the best apple out there for Can...

Can asked Aunt Remide if it was a good idea to bring Sanem along to visit the compound. And that just put a period at the end of the sentence she was forming about Sanem. It was time for Can to get his backbone back. He always acted first, and rarely thought beforehand. This thinking and wallowing Can would not accomplish anything. It was time to act, and to move. And to reach for what was already in his heart...