Serop Jaklian - Archbishop’s Essay Contest Winner
Every year the ACYO Central Council holds the Archbishop’s Essay Contest. Every year this contest challenges the faithful youth of the Armenian Church to look inside themselves and write an essay on spiritually uplifting topic. The 2007 Archbishop’s essay contest prompt was:
“In a 2 page maximum essay, explain how your faith has helped you specifically to overcome adversity in your life.“
This year’s winner is Serop Jaklian from the Arizona ACYO. Congratulations to Serop for his touching essay. Serop will be one of the 16 interns that will be taking eight weeks out of their daily life in their hometown to live and work in our homeland’s capitol city, Yerevan. This summer, Serop will be placed in a medical internship inside of a Yerevan hospital.
Congratulations again Serop Jaklian!
Serop Jaklian- Arizona ACYO
As I sit in St. Peters church, I experience something beyond myself, something divine. Goosebumps run through my body at the sound of the choir. The locking harmonies are incredible. I can hear an overtone humming up over the choir. St. Peters Church is beautiful in its shining detail, and the communal atmosphere makes me proud to be a Christian. I am not usually exposed to an actual church, considering our Badarak is held in a community center. As I listen to the ‘Hayr Mer’, I think about our future church, to be built in Scottsdale, Arizona. My dream is to have a church as vibrant as St. Peters’ with a choir as angelic in song. Hopefully that day will soon arrive. I see Father Shnork approach the front of the alter and deliver a Hokehankist. I hear his name. It is a Karasoonk, or Forty Days Requiem, for my uncle Bernard Berberian.
Keri Bernard, as my brother Garo and I called him, was our favorite uncle. He was known as the family jokester, always there to make the family laugh, no matter what the situation was. He always would slip me $20 every time we visited Los Angeles, which wasn’t very often. The fact that I didn’t see him much only made it more glorifying when I did. He completed the family. Keri Bernard was the President of the Armenian Yellow Pages, producing information for Armenians all over the United States and Canada. He had a great impact on the Armenian Community and was very well known, making him incredibly busy. This was until the day of his first seizure, when he was rushed to the hospital.
Shortly after that, we were told he had a brain tumor. The doctors had diagnosed him with cancer. I remember the visits my family made to see him. He was losing ability to do normal things, and it got to the point where he couldn’t speak. This was one of the scariest things I had ever experienced. Visiting Keri Bernard was uncomfortable for me because I did not enjoy seeing him like that. I had so many happy associations with him, and the idea that he had lost the ability to function was heartbreaking. And then it was New Years Day, around 9am, when the house phone rang. My dad answered it and quickly handed it to mom. I instantly knew what had happened when I saw a tear drop fall from mom’s eye. The next two weeks were painful, and anyone who has lost a loved one knows that it is almost impossible to explain the feeling.
I don’t deal with death very well. I usually don’t know what to say to comfort someone who has lost a loved one, so I usually let them be. But this time, that someone was me, and I had plenty of comforters. My whole family would constantly be around me and I was surrounded by sorrow and sadness. There were the select few who could hold in their tears that tried to comfort me. It helped, but nothing can take away that kind of pain. I really didn’t know who to turn to, who to blame and who’s shoulder to cry on. That night, I sat in bed and prayed, something I hadn’t done in a long time. Then I realized something. When I was talking to God, everything seemed ok. The fact that my uncle had passed away hadn’t changed, but my feelings toward it were shifted, from mourning his death to remembering his life. God made me realize that Keri Bernard isn’t gone, because his spirit and soul still lie within our memories, and more importantly our hearts. God was the greatest comfort of all.
As Hagop Nersoyan says in The Faith of the Armenian Church, “Whereas we see our ordinary friends, we do not see God.” From this entry, I realize that even though our senses don’t experience God, he is always there, as our friend and father. I consider god my best friend, helping me realize that even the most real and sad moments in life can be portrayed happily with the help of faith. And with this in mind, I will forever remember my Keri Bernard, for I wear his cross to this date and forever will.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Serop, I am a very “old” friend of your mother and your Keri Bernard (I have been living in Argentina for the past 11 years). I was in Los Angeles visiting family when Bernard passed away and I was able to attend his funeral, where I met you and your brother.
Your words in your essay touched me, you write beautifuly and I am sure your mother is very very proud.
I hope your time in Yerevan will be very joyous. Good luck and congratulations again for your wonderful essay.