Armenia Day continued. Ararat Cemetary.

As I said when I began this series of blog entries, we ended our day at the Ararat Cemetery; we wandered around the gravestones, immersed in the life, death, and grief of a community. You'll find the cemetery on Belmont, west of Highway 99. There are several blocks of cemeteries; if you've gone past Roman Catholic Holy Cross, you've gone too far.

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I found two memorials commemorating the genocide. This was the older.
I don't read Armenian, so I don't know exactly what is written on this grave. Is this the story of an entire family wiped out in the genocide? I don't know.

Most graves have English or English and Armenian, but this grave has Armenian only.
Many gravestones give us an image of the dead, in photos taken on their wedding day.
Other gravestones include these happy photos of the dead, a reminder of the individual lives that are begun, lived in Fresno, and finally ended among their loved ones and community.
And there, in a grave with his name on both sides, is the final resting place of William Saroyan, and his daughter Lucy.

This gravestone, with its image of a beautiful young girl, was most touching to me.


So ended our "Armenia Day." We enjoyed a little supper at "In-And-Out" Burger, which is significant to our friendship, but not, of course, Armenian as far as I know. And then returned to Santa Cruz, with our memories of our trip which we will treasure forever.