I sit on my balcony in the late afternoon hours and feel the heat of the sun-baked day hug and flow over my exposed arms. The day is barely past mid-day, but I feel overcome by the torrents of emotion and bytes that Facebook and YouTube have been delivering to my consciousness since morning.
It is April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
Except that this year, it’s different, because the world is different. The path to the memorial lies empty in unspeakable contrast to the never-ending crowds of hands holding red and white tulips, as if fists clenched in demand. The flowers surrounding the eternal flame have not kneeled under their own height and weight, as if in respect to the martyrs to whom they are dedicated. The rain, however, still falls as it does every year.
Instead, I witness an unknown face playing on the duduk a song of sorrow too familiar, set against the images of Armenian names gathered from afar, bowing over the eternal flame as their ancient letters shine against the leaning memorial. A virtual march – moving, uplifting, overwhelming, and implemented phenomenally – portrays beautifully the singularity of the Armenian fate: each name, a spark that empowers the eternal flame to light up the divine connection between memory and the heavens. We watch on as floodlights surrounding the memorial beseech the sky for peace and justice in ethereal prayer, singing their psalms against the song of the tolling bells of Armenian churches around the world. Witnessing this liturgy just yonder is the column of eternity, soaring up as if in rebirth and resurrection, flooded with red in agony, in anger and in arms until closure is achieved.
Before the evening progresses through midnight, a lone elder man is escorted to the flame. We recognize him as the grandfather who had been waiting patiently and relentlessly since morning at the slopes of the memorial hill, Tsitsernakaberd, having been denied access per health protocol. Evidently, his spirit was stronger than the police restriction and the chilling rain it had to endure.
Aida and I watch along with our brethren, breathlessly, as the aged man feebly descends the steps to the flame, approaches the wall of flowers to lay the flowers in his hand to rest, and crosses his body once… and then once more… and then again… and then again… as if speaking to God from the depths of his heart asking for His brilliance and wisdom and guidance for the souls lost and the souls that still shall live. He disappears behind the wall one last time as if kissing the earth underneath his feet… and rising again, he looks upward with his palms holding up the night sky as though in final requiem. At that moment, every Armenian watching sees the embodiment of the nation that was and the nation that is, and also the nation that will be, collected and reflected within the person of this lone elder man, armed with the humility of a stranger, burning with the passion of a king, yearning with the perseverance of a piecing arrow, and rising with the commitment of the sunrise. His eyes, weathered with pain, resound with hope.
The honks outside startle me back to my seat on the balcony, my ears hurting from the blasts of revving engines being stressed unnecessarily as they grunt up and down Colorado Street. It’s a colonnade of my kinsmen, lacking all reason as they drive double the speed limit of 35mph, achieving nothing other than shame and humiliation for the community. I look inside, seeking Aida’s eyes which I find looking back at me through the reflections off the balcony door glass. “What is this, a wedding?” she asks, making no effort to conceal her bewilderment. I frown my glance in painful frustration, unwillingly comparing what I’m hearing at the moment with what I saw online moments ago, including the news that the same Armenian community had raised funds to feed 4,500,000 people. Our faces would freeze in horror when we would later read that one of the cars had rolled over on the Interstate 10 freeway, leaving a fellow seed buried too soon.
Before the final signs of the resigning sun disappeared into the stars, leaving as its sole the still lingering heat in the air, I resort back to Facebook and find peace in the epigraph of Very Rev. Fr. Pakrad Berjekian’s homily: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
Chronicles 