[Editor’s Note: Each day this week, the newspaper will present excerpts from the new novel by Dr. Rosemary H. Cohen, “The Mother of Jerusalem Is Crying,” inspired, as all of her extensive writings are, by the sudden death of her teenage daughter 19 summers ago.]
The Preface, Part IV
Re “How Different Our Lives Might Have Been”
I can understand the depth of the tragedy just as if I had experienced it first-hand.
In addition, I understand the meaning of the religious conflicts, as I have experienced them all myself. I have lived in many countries, and I speak many languages. Sometimes people forget what I am, and they express themselves as freely as if were one of them.
So I can understand the reasons for the conflicts and the pain of suffering.
But I still believe we are all part of one family. We are tied together like the pearls of a necklace, hanging from the same thread for a given time. We can stay there only as long as we can hold onto and watch out for each other.
Although the story I am about to tell begins in the late 1800s in Asia Minor, it really is without time or place. It has happened before and since.
(To be continued)
Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen, who lives in the Fairfax District, earned her Ph.D in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. She lived in two other countries before moving with her husband and children to Los Angeles in 1984. She has published three books in America and is at work on her fourth. Since 1985, Dr. Cohen has operated Atelier de Paris, an international art business, on Robertson Boulevard. She may be contacted at rosemary@atelierdeparis.com
