My last day in this life is actually my birthday. And what a grandiose day this is: My family, relatives, and friends have all gathered to welcome me to this new world. I join life in the supreme ranks of respect, experience and enlightenment. As Mark Twain once imagined, "Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages." Today is certainly the first day of the rest of my life.

During my first few decades I travel around the world, while spending summers in the Mediterranean. I get up early to milk the cow, pick up big shining tomatoes from the vineyard and eat freshly baked bread. I read and write quite a lot. I meditate regularly in the mornings and often pray. My health gets better and better everyday.

Soon enough, though, I come to realize life isn't that comfortable. I need to start working to earn my life. However, the harder I work the less I am getting paid. My career declines from the heights to lower ranks. My kids start school and that drains my whole finances. I lose my house and owe money to my mortgage company. Although we continue seeing each other, I break up with my wife. I have a hard time understanding her; it feels like I have never met that person.

It's the first years of the new millennium and I move to New York to change the pace of my life. I work for a couple more years and sick of business life I decide to go back to school. Graduate school gives me a needed break and I enjoy the slow motion of academia. In time, I feel an increasing urge to return to my roots. On a hot summer day, before the semester begins, I return to Istanbul.

I decide to take a different route in my new life and start with school. I sign up to become an electrical engineer in college. Having traveled the world all my life, my dad thinks I should rest and he gives me pocket money to survive. High school years pass in a whirl and I enjoy the classes that get easier every year. It's the 80s now and Turkey's in a big turmoil, so we move to Germany where my father went to college and worked. I still recall my first day in kindergarten, my endless fights with my younger sister and our little apartment on Posener Weg.

I feel like I am going through a big change in my life. I talk less with people and spend most of my time at home sleeping. After all these years, socializing feels like a burden on me. I don't even bother getting up anymore; my food is delivered to me.

"I have this feeling that I am leaving soon," I confess to my mom one day. "Is there really life before birth?" I ask. She remains silent for a while before softly uttering the words "Only God knows that," and adds "But I do feel that one day you and me will be one."

A few weeks later at night, they rush me to a hospital. I feel my time has come to leave this world. As people fervently run around me in excitement, I rest on a little white bed, happily waiting to return to my creator.

Nine months later my parents receive a letter in the mail.

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More Articles by Mehmet Dede:

One Truth: Omar Faruk Tekbilek's Sound & Soul (English, 2003)
Check-i Duezen (Turkish Bio, 2002)
Lost And Found: Ilhan Mimaroglu (English, 2002)
Jive Talkin' with Arif Mardin (English, 2001)
The Sounds Rises From The East: The Life & Works of Erol Akyavas (English, 2001)