DistantNews
Support us
🇹🇷 Turkey /Culture & Society

It Feels Like We Are Playing Hide-and-Seek With Death

From Hürriyet · () Turkish

Translated from Turkish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Opinion Named sources Ongoing story
  • The writer reflects on the death of 51-year-old actor Serhat Kılıç, whose cause of death has not yet been established.
  • She links the growing impact of recent deaths to the loss of people from her own generation and urges readers not to postpone important conversations or plans.
  • The column criticizes Berhan Şimşek for denying violence allegations and turning a press statement into a broader historical speech instead of apologizing.

Serhat Kılıç was 51 when his girlfriend found him motionless in an armchair in the living room. His cause of death is not yet known, and the writer says she will leave the competing claims aside until the forensic report clarifies what happened. But the central fact, she says, remains that a 51-year-old person has died.

A scene from Kılıç’s series “The Last Day” began circulating after his death. In it, a character says, “Do you know what life resembles? It is as if we are playing hide-and-seek with death.” The writer says the line captures how she has felt lately. After listing the recent deaths of İlber Ortaylı, Ferdi Atuner, Tülay Özer, Reha Muhtar, Ece İrtem, Kadir İnanır, Zihni Göktay, Cansever and MasterChef contestant Eren Kaşıkçı, she asks whether she is simply growing older.

Do you know what life resembles? It is as if we are playing hide-and-seek with death.

· Character in “The Last Day”The line from Serhat Kılıç’s series that frames the writer’s reflection on mortality.

Death once seemed distant, she writes. Those who died belonged to an older generation, while her own life still appeared to have many steps ahead. Now the people in the headlines belong to her generation, and sometimes they are younger. Ece İrtem was 35, and Eren Kaşıkçı was 37. When people from childhood memories also begin disappearing, the writer says, a person realizes how far through life they have already traveled.

I am at fault. Forgive me.

· Expected apology described by the writerThe apology the writer says she hoped Berhan Şimşek would make over the violence allegations.

That is why the latest deaths feel heavier, she argues. They do not merely bring death closer. They touch memories. Her response is a direct appeal not to postpone life: call the people you keep meaning to call, meet those you told you would see, and stop waiting for “sometime.” She says she does not want to think about when death will find her, and would rather watch life from her hiding place until then.

The column then turns to violence against women and Berhan Şimşek’s press statements in Aydın and Muğla. The writer says she expected an apology, but Şimşek denied the allegations and called them an “assassination of character.” She criticizes his references to figures from Saladin and Mehmed the Conqueror to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and questions why the crowd applauded while serious violence allegations were being discussed. The column ends by criticizing the protective circle around violence and the familiar attempts to qualify it with “but.”

Assassination of character

· Berhan ŞimşekHis description of the violence allegations, which the writer criticizes.
About this summary

Originally published by Hürriyet in Turkish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog