Fethiye Çetin

“Her name was Heranuş. She was the granddaughter of Herabet Gadaryan, and the only daughter of İsguhi and Hovannes Gadaryan.    She passed a happy childhood in the village of Habab, near Palu, until she reached the fourth grade.    Then suddenly, she was thrown into the painful times about which she would say, ‘May those days vanish never to return’.    Heranuş lost her entire family and never saw them again. She was given a new name, to live in a new family.    She forgot her mother tongue and her religion, and though she did not once in her life complain about this, she never ever forgot her name, her village, her mother, her father, her grandfather or her close relations. She lived until the age of 95, always hoping that she might be able to see them and embrace them again one day. Perhaps it was this hope that allowed her to live so long; until her very last days, her mind remained sharp. Last week, we lost Heranuş, our grandmother, and sent her to her eternal resting place. We are hoping that this announcement might reach the relations (our relations) that we were never able to find while she was alive, that they may share our grief, in the hope that ‘those days may vanish, never to return.”
― Fethiye Çetin, My Grandmother: An Armenian-Turkish Memoir