"BABY TAYLOR DURU"* FABLE
("TAYLOR DURU BEBEK" MASALI)
It was a cloudy day in April. Dede had just opened his restaurant in Columbus for breakfast and he only had three customers. Suddenly the telephone rang. It was Anneanne calling…
“Gem” she said “Asli just called and Matt took her to the hospital. She is having the baby!” Anneanne’s voice was very excited.
“Oh my God!” said Dede. “Isn’t this too early? ” Let me call my Manager so we can pack and rush to Chicago. The manager was a good man named Jim D. He came to the restaurant immediately.
When Dede came home, Aunt Esra was already there with her dog Coco. Coco was a cute little tan and white puppy. Everybody in the house was excited. They packed fast. Dede could not find matching socks.
“Come on Geeem!”**said Anneanne “Hurry and don’t take that coat. It is too warm outside”. They packed fast and got into the big red car. They put their dog Lady into the back of the car. She was an old dog with white hair.
In the red car, Anneanne called Asli and Matt from the cell phone. Both mom and dad were very excited. The Doctor had just told them the baby was coming in the late afternoon.
Four hours passed since the red car left Columbus and Anneanne, Dede and Aunt Esra were in Indiana now. Anneanne called Matt again. There was no answer. She called Asli and nobody picked up. Everybody in the red car panicked. Then they called Angie, Asli’s best friend. She did not know what was going on. They called the Central Dupage Hospital. The hospital would not tell.
Then the telephone rang. It was only noon. Dede was driving and Anneanne was yelling and screaming. “What happened? What happened?” said Aunt Esra and Dede.
“It’s a girl!! It’s a girl!!! The baby just came!!!” shouted Anneanne.
“I told you… I told you… It was going to be a girl!” said Dede. All of them were crying from joy. They immediately called Gigiianne***, Gigibaba, Uncle Cengiz and their friend Oya. “Guess what?” they said.
“Taylor Duru came to the world and we are going to see her in two hours.”
When they came to the hospital they had to take Lady and CoCo out so they could go poopy. Then they put the dogs back into the red car and went inside the hospital.
The hospital was so big that Dede, Anneanne and Aunt Esra got lost a little bit . There were flowers everywhere in the hospital. Finally they found their way to Mother and Baby unit.
As they went in from the swinging doors to the Mother and Baby unit, Dede saw this cutest little baby in a wooden crib with plastic glass all around it. She had a pink blanket. Dede’s heart started pounding heavy. This must be Taylor Duru, he thought. Anneanne and Aunt Esra already rushed into Asli’s room. Dede saw Aunt Heidi coming out of Asli’s room. “Did you see her?” she said while pointing to the littlest and cutest girl in the crib.
“I knew it…I knew it!” said Dede, “I knew that was Taylor Duru” he said.
The nurses brought the little baby to her mom’s room. Asli looked more beautiful than ever. She hugged and put the baby next to her chin. “Isn’t she beautiful!” she said.
Matt was so proud of his new little girl. You could see the joy in his eyes.
“Look her little feet! It looks like Asli’s” he said. He gave both the baby and his wife a kiss in the forehead.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” said Grandpa Weil and took her into his lap. “She is so precious” said Grandma Weil while taking Taylor from Grandpa Weil. Grandpa Weil had a yellow jacket on. Aunt Steffanie and Uncle Josh were also in the room and they were so happy to see and hug the new baby. Uncle Josh was eating a big hamburger.
Her Haminne ****also called, she was crying on the telephone from joy.
Everybody in the room number 3512 was happy and cheerful. The room was full of beautiful flowers, balloons, teddy bears and toys. And Taylor Duru was very happy too, with her family.
She was the most beautiful thing ever. She had the smallest little mouth with beautiful pink lips. Her little tongue would sometimes come out of her mouth and experiment around. Her bluish beautiful eyes would go right and left and then get tired and hide behind her little eyelashes. Sometimes she would stretch her left arm out the blanket showing her long and so perfect fingers. She would squeeze her eyebrows to the middle of her forehead if she was hungry and murmur with her little voice saying that she needed to be fed. And when she was happy her round cheek bones would even get rounder and her pink little mouth would get wider with a grin.
She was the most beautiful thing on earth and God’s gift to her parents.
Two days later, Baby Taylor Duru went home with her Mom and Dad to their house in Yorkville, Illinois and lived happily ever after with their two puppies, Duke and Lacy.
Cem Ozmeral-“Dede”
Yorkville, Illinois
April, 23 2009
23 Nisan , 2009**
*Baby Taylor Duru Weil. Her middle name is derived from Durupinar which is her Anneanne’s maiden name. (Sitare Durupınar Özmeral ).Duru means “pure “ in Turkish. Durupinar meaning pure water or clear spring
** Her maternal grandfather (Dede in Turkish). His name is Cem, pronounced Gem and often pronounced as "Geem" by her maternal grandmother (Anneanne in Turkish); Sitare. In Turkish one can distinguish between maternal grandmother and paternal grandmother; Anneanne or Babaanne. (Anne is Mother and Baba is Father). Also Dede for Maternal Grandfather and Büyükbaba for Paternal Grandfather.
*** Gigianne her maternal Great- grandmother: Ülker Durupinar, Gigibaba; Tayfur Durupinar, her maternal Great Grand-father.
Grandmother Sheri Weil,
Granfather Steve Weil.
****Haminne, her Maternal Great-Grandmother; Lamia Özmeral
*****23rd day of April is the “Children’s Day”, an official Holiday in Turkey, which is celebrated by all parents with their children since 1923. The story was written on that day, four days after Taylor D. Weil was born.
