"Though daylight was fading from the leaf..." ~ Jane Eyre


My grandfather John looked a great deal like Joe Torre and, ironically, had his demeanor. He had dark set eyes, a prominent nose, lots of common sense, and a calm exterior. When Torre left the Yankees, I felt my grandfather's death all over again. I watched countless Yankee games with my grandfather with Torre at the helm; the good old days when Jeter was a newbie and Torre was in his glory as a manager. So when Joe left, it was heartbreaking for me on many levels. Thankfully Jeter is still there, a favorite superstar of my grandfather's.

This week I spoke about highlighting the best men in my life. This post is about my grandfather, John. The post is the eulogy I gave at his funeral, seven years ago. I still remember giving it at the funeral home, and I remember miraculously being able to hold it together for his sake.

All of us have been very fortunate that our lives have been lovingly touched by John -----. As a husband, father, grandfather, uncle, cousin, brother-in-law, and friend, he exemplified every special quality a person could have. Though my grandfather may have seemed quiet and introverted to many, he was indeed expressive and outgoing. He shared many stories with me that give a picture of how full and special his life has been. Each story fits a chronological picture of his life.

Born in 1919 in Istanbul, Turkey, he came from a strong Armenian family who survived the Armenian Genocide. Among the first stories told are of how he and his mother, father, and brother moved to Astoria, New York, when he was a year old. As a young boy, he and his brother Steven would play ball on the street on 33rd street until my grandmother Haiganoush would call them in for dinner. The house in Astoria also served as a dental office for my great grandpa, Sarkis, and little did my grandpa know that as a baby, his future wife was being brought to his father’s office for dental work. Growing up in Astoria my grandfather was close to his brother, Steven, and he told stories about the two of them convening at Sam’s Candy Shop where they would see Tony Bennett hanging out. I remember one story that is quintessential in portraying my grandfather’s wonderful sense of humor. Vacationing in the Catskills with my grandma Alice’s family when they were both teenagers, he decided to climb the roof one night and play a practical joke on my grandma and her sisters by scaring them as they were sleeping. In 1941 my grandfather’s sense of duty and honor led him to enlist in the United States Army. There he served during WWII in the Signal Core in North Italy and North Africa with the Fifth Army. If any good was to come out of the bad at this time, it was the beautiful love letters between he and my grandmother. He arrived home from the war in 1945 and married Alice ------ in 1946. They spent 57 years together in a loving marriage. At this time he worked in the photo engraving business, making plates for magazines such as National Geographic. In 1947 my grandparents were blessed with a daughter Liz and in 1952 they were blessed with another daughter, Irene. Other special highlights of the later parts of his life included the building of the Catskill house in 1967, the birth of his granddaughter Missy in 1974, and bringing my sister and I home after our birth in 1978.

The special moments we have shared with him are a testimony as to how deeply he touched our lives. For his wife, Alice, her favorite moment with him was when he proposed to her in a movie theatre. For his daughter, Liz, it was the times she spent with him at their home in the Catskills, swimming, barbecuing, and being together as a family. For his daughter, Irene, it was when she and her friend, Maureen rode their horses to the Catskill house and surprised my grandparents as they trotted through the backyard. For his granddaughter, Robin, it was being a young child in the Catskills and waking him up on the morning by tickling his feet and ringing a cowbell that stood on his dresser. For his granddaughter, Missy, it was riding with him on the tractor as he mowed the lawn at the Catskill house.

For me, it was our Strawberry ice cream nights at the rehabilitation center two years ago where we would pig out on Dove Bars and talk about Joe Torre and the Yankees, laugh together about stories I would tell him, and joke that never-ending joke he and I shared about the sparks I had with my college boyfriend.

I would like to thank everyone who supported my grandfather during this illness. We should all be thankful he is finally in peace and with God. May we all be fortunate to live as long a life as he did. When my Grandfather Krikor died, my English teacher at the time noticed how sad I was and she gave me words of comfort that should be taken to heart for all of us who have lost a loved one. She told me that I did not need to miss him, for he was never truly gone. Every morning when I wake up and look in mirror, he is there inside of me in my spirit and will always be there. The spirits of loved ones we love will always remain inside of us. I wish you all comfort and peace with these thoughts.

And to my grandfather, I know your spirit is here and I know you can hear me. I know you will never leave me or your family. You are in my heart and I will see you again. What I wish to express to you in this moment is best said by Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics to your favorite song, “but I will miss you most of all my darling, when Autumn Leaves start to fall...”

"With an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger..." ~ Jane Eyre

There were custom made wooden shelves built in the basement of my father’s parents’ home. My grandfather, Krikor, layered basic planks of wood next to a refrigerator besides the one in the kitchen upstairs.

These shelves were over five feet long.

On the shelves sat mason jars filled with brined grape leaves for dolma, processed by my grandmother Anoush's hands – leaves straight from the grapevines in the backyard. Other mason jars were filled with bulgur, the cracked wheat used in tabouleh. Cans of chicken broth would practically fill an entire shelf. Boxes of pasta were stored intermittently between hundreds of cans and containers…hundreds. Corn, tuna, cranberry sauce, kidney beans, chick peas, peas, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, soups, gravies, fruit cocktail, yams, peanut butter, breadcrumbs, olive oil, vinegar, pickles, rice.

As a child, I believed everyone’s grandmother’s basement was filled as though it were its own aisle in a supermarket. Six days a week she cooked for herself and my grandfather; she was petite and lean and he was tall and lean since neither were big eaters. Sundays we came – an addition of five more. Even then I never saw her actually enter the basement to gather ingredients for whatever dishes she was making, like pilaf and shish kebab and lahmanjoon.

It was as though the cans and jars and boxes of food were a permanent fixture there.

In her childhood, my grandmother was not to remain a permanent fixture in Chomaklu, Armenia. She would never grow up in her homeland. As a child, she and her family were deported and sent on a death march by the Young Turkish party after they had decimated the village and killed hundreds there, an addition to the million that were murdered during the Armenian Genocide.

Along this death march into Romania, my grandmother starved. Two of her siblings starved to death and their graves were preyed on by ravenous wolves during the nights after their burials. I remember the fight that ensued between my grandmother and great-aunt when my great-aunt told me of these events when I was a very young girl. My grandmother didn’t want me to know. But I needed to know.

And so do you.

A year after my grandmother died in 1998, I sat in a class with Dr. Druyan, who allowed me to alter her syllabus for Literature of the Holocaust and incorporate my own readings of the Armenian Genocide into the writings I did in the course. After reading Enemies, A Love Story, Dr. Druyan discussed Survivor’s Syndrome in her lecture. It was then that it dawned on me the full extent of my grandmother’s syndrome. There is more besides the stockpile of food in fear of starving, but the ocean of cans and boxes and jars and containers were the most prominent aspect of her symptoms.

I never left my grandmother’s home without eating. She was an amazing cook, and I hope that I do her proud with the dishes I make. My grandmother would make me and my sisters anything that we wanted…anything…and she would cook with a smile and watch us eat with pleasure. She spent her childhood starving and I spent my childhood being fed the best of food by her small hands, hands that even cooked despite Parkinson’s disease in her later years.

These days I relish in cooking for my nephew, whether it be pastina or scrambled eggs, for I know she is looking down and watching me make sure that her Armenian great-grandson, who will be taught about the Armenian Genocide one day, is well fed, both with the kind of food and the kind of love she gave us.

http://www.theforgotten.org/site/intro_eng.html