Why is Grandma Crying?

My mother and my grandparents in Syria

My grandma, my mother's mother, spoke very little English and I spoke very little Turkish or Armenian.  Often, my grandmother would suddenly start crying and saying things in Turkish.  As a little girl, I would get very concerned and I'd ask my mother, "Why is Grandma crying?"  The answer was always the same, "She is crying because of the genocide."  The genocide, I knew, was an attempt to annihilate the Armenian people and eradicate that race from Ottoman Turkey.  I knew that 1.5 million Armenians died during the genocide.

My mother and my grandparents barely made it out with their lives.  My grandmother suffered greatly, losing 5 children through starvation, lack of services, water, and being displaced from their homeland.  My grandmother lost her first child in the desert of Hauran, south of Damascus, (now a part of Jordan). 

My grandmother never wore earrings.  After my mother passed away I found a short story she had written about how my grandmother had many nice things after her marriage, but had to sell them all.  Even her ruby earrings were torn off by Turkish soldiers.

While reading all these things and chronicling all these events, my heart poured out to my grandmother and I wrote her the following poem.

When I look in your eyes

I see another world

I am safe, I am secure

But you are not

If I could, I would travel in time

To be there

To hold your hand

To catch your tears

That travel from here to there and back again

Tears are not held in time

In the glistening tear drops

A memory is held

Trapped forever

And then you are there

Amid the bombs, the hate

Cowering and covering, protecting your young

The tears travel back again, to the present, to the now

While I peer and glimpse

Curious

Yet I cannot understand

I am safe, I am secure

But you are not

The tears gush

I cock my head, hoping to know

But the portal is closed to me

For you it is wide open

You utter in words I never learned

I walk away for I am safe and I am secure

And now I return, but the tears have taken you

And the portal has slammed the door shut

Forgive me Grandmama

I never learned, I never understood

The portal calls and beckons

For me to learn, for me to understand

With my tiny hands, I will shove, I will heave

The massive stone taunts me

The portal beckons, I twist and turn and squeeze

Through the sliver of an opening

I will find the bones and bury them

Vehanoush,

Krikor,

Marie,

Mary,

The stillborn

I will find your tears

and mix them with the dry, clay earth

burned by the heat

mixed with the hatred of men

For you, Grandmama,

I will understand

Shirley Kalashian

April 27, 2007

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