Friday, Jan. 19. The day you were murdered. I stare at the TV, at your tall, thin body lying dead on the sidewalk of a busy street in Istanbul . You are in front of your office, the office of the Turkish-Armenian weekly you worked so hard to launch and sustain. I cannot take my eyes off the soles of your shoes. Worn out and tired, your shoes are a mute response to all those ultranationalists who accused you of being in the pay of the Armenian diaspora to disrupt the status quo in Turkey .

I feel numb. And I know you wouldn't approve of that. All your life you have struggled to encourage both Turks and Armenians to shake off the mutual numbness in their hearts so that they can start feeling each other's emotions and hearing each other's words.

On the day you were finally given a passport, after being denied one by the state for many years, you were as happy as a kid. "Can you believe it?"

You said. "I can travel now!" And so you did, commuting between America , Europe , Turkey and Armenia , bridging gaps that people on all sides took for granted. Always a maverick, you never just gave your audience what they wanted to hear. The myriad prejudices and generalizations in the Armenian diaspora about Turkey and the Turks frustrated you. "Yes, there are bigoted Turks," you would say, "but there also countless progressive, open-minded ones, and they are my friends, brothers and sisters."

The myriad prejudices and generalizations in Turkish society about Armenians saddened you, too. You also wanted us Turks to break the deep silence regarding the massacres and deportation of Armenians in 1915, to question our collective amnesia. Nevertheless, you fervently opposed the Armenian genocide bill approved by the French Parliament, which would make it a crime to say that the events of 1915 were not a genocide, because, first and foremost, you believed in freedom of expression. You said it was not up to Western politicians to write our history. Turks and Armenians had to do that, build a dialogue and, eventually, learn to reconcile.

You could have gone abroad to live in greater safety and comfort. But you were passionate about Istanbul and would always say, "This city belongs to us all, regardless of religion and ethnicity."

Tuesday, Jan. 23. The day we buried you. "Yes," you once said, "we Turkish Armenians do have a claim to the soil of this country, but not to take it away, as some accuse us of secretly plotting, but to be buried deep under it." Your funeral was spectacular. Tens of thousands marched. They carried signs that said, WE ARE ALL HRANT, WE ARE ALL ARMENIANS.

The Turkish press, left and right, condemned your assassination. You united people of all ideological backgrounds and made them recognize their common faith in democracy.

At the Armenian cemetery, the crowd was asked to wait outside, but people refused.

Muslims and Christians buried you together. On your gravestone there sits a marble angel, her eyes turned toward the sky, as if awaiting an explanation, or else, consolation. But that solace won't come from above. It will come from Turkey, from the land you loved.

-- Elif Shafak

Shafak, a longtime friend of Dink's, recently published her novel The Bastard of Istanbul, about Turks and Armenians, in English