Dear Lucy and Cady

There is a secret about people who are told that they are amazing. Those look at the most amazing people and get excited “Wow.. this is the ultimate level of amazingness.. I can never be that amazing”.. They aspire to and get inspired by those and it opens new avenues in their pursuit of personal growth.

This is exactly how I feel about Paul.

I had briefly met Paul a few times since he joined our lab, but never had a real conversation. I mostly saw him in the confocal microscopy room, where he would scan brain slices for several hours at night. I would be navigating through rooms without knowing what exactly I was up to (those were my first months in the lab, and I was quite lost yet very curious). He always managed to give me a sincere smile emerging behind his tired eyes, and patiently answered my most naive questions about the bright colored dots that I saw on the brains that he was imaging. I would try to shut up and leave quickly not to bother him too much.

My first real interaction with him though, occurred when I was doing one of my first mouse perfusions as he was standing next to me at the hood doing something else. I can not remember what he was up to because I was in great distress and my perception was probably blocked since my heart rate increased over a hundred.

Mouse perfusions tend to be the least favorite thing that the researchers in our lab need to get done. It is a way of dissecting the brain out after euthanizing an animal. I had been trained on it a few times, and it was time to do it myself.

I felt pretty confident and took a few steps into the procedure after the euthanasia, when I suddenly realized that the animal seemed to be reacting to my movements with small twitches . I totally freaked out thinking that he was still alive and just stopped moving and started staring at him as its heart rate started increasing with mine.

While this was happening Paul was minding his own business next to mine. I finally realized I had to act, and asked him what he thought was going on and what I should do. He said that I probably injected the euthanasia inducing chemical to a wrong spot and it did not yet kick in. So I injected some more but the animal still seemed to be in distress. I stopped again and restarted my scrutiny. Was he suffering? Was I hurting him when he was still alive? Were those twitches just reflexes? Was the heart rate coming down?

Paul must have felt the accelerating misery in the room. He looked at me, then to the mouse, and turned back to me and said: “At this point, all you can do is to finish the procedure as quickly as possible. It is too late to save him and he just doesn’t look happy.” He was wearing a serious yet calm look. I was totally ashamed of my incapability and was looking into his eyes, searching for the courage that would help me just go for it.

And I did. With trembling hands, a bucket of sweat running down my back, I eradicated all the distress in the air. And as the mouse was relieved of his pain along with his breathing, the pain transferred to me and curved my lips down.

Looking back, it is not surprising how Paul could keep so calm, sound and understanding. He probably saw doctors getting trained on human patients, and inevitably making mistakes at times. The ending of mouse’s life does not seem as traumatizing. What still surprises me though is how he could keep so calm and sound when he had to face his own destiny. It was inescapable, it was not happy, yet it was. It was real.

I believe very few people could take such situation with all the courage and wiseness in the world, and enjoy life and whatever it had left to offer. Paul was extremely lucky to have an amazing wife, and life’s most miraculous offering, an adorable daughter, when it seemed there was not much to enjoy. And not only he enjoyed his days as much as he could, but being forced to skip a whole medical career, he jumped to his next, and became a writer during his remaining time.

Paul leaned on you, dear Lucy and Cady, and touched our lives in a deepest way. He taught us some of the most important lessons about how to take life as it is, what really matters, and how to enjoy it lightheartedly.

I am gonna be amazed by Paul forever. He is the ultimate level of amazingness. I will remember him, and even if we never met, I think about you, and I feel a bond between us.

Happy Mother’s Day, Lucy. You are unbelievably brave to have given Paul the best gift imaginable. And whenever you like to receive a gift, I would love to host you in Istanbul. We can walk around the old land, admire the beatiful palaces, and smoke hookah as we gaze the Bosphorus with a calm smile.

P.S. Paul’s book is now the NYT’s bestseller, and his picture in front of the confocal microscope looking at brain images appears frequently in the media and in my facebook posts. I haven’t yet had a chance to look at that picture with dry eyes. And I hope that his memory will stay fresh in my heart.