Abuzer was 65 and Zeynep 59 when they finally held their daughters in their arms.
They had been married for 34 years in Adıyaman, Turkey, and that time was marked by the loss of two pregnancies and medical treatments they tried in different cities across the country. To pay for them, they sold their own home. When the twins were finally born, photos of the family visiting Anıtkabir went viral and moved thousands of Turks.
But the joy came with one more ordeal: they discovered that someone from the neighborhood had been withdrawing Zeynep’s pension for nearly two years without her knowing. When Abuzer was asked whether he would report the person responsible, he gave an answer no one expected: he preferred not to know who it was, for fear that person might harm their daughters. Their priority was never the money they had lost, but the safety of the girls they had struggled so hard to have. After the story became known, the community mobilized to help them move to a safer home, near the little girls’ school.
