Flower of Remembrance

Taking a slightly different turn here...

 
Aside from planting vegetables, I am also a big fan of  flowers and foliage.  So, on this special day of remembrance, I planted a special kind of wildflower.

The "Forget-me-not" is the official flower of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.  One hundred years ago, today, an orchestrated event took place which began with massacres and ended with deportation of some 1.5 million Armenians, in the Turkish occupied lands of Western Armenia.  Among them were my own grandparents on both sides of my family.  My father's father himself marched along the death march in the deserts of Der el Zor, Syria, before finding his way to safety in Beirut, Lebanon.   A lot has happened since then, and I am glad to be alive, to have traversed land and sea to be living in freedom, and to never forget that I'm a grandchild of survivors.  However, the genocide itself, though recognized by 20-some countries around the world, is still to be officially recognized by the U.S. and Turkey.  An overwhelming 44 U.S. states have already recognized it as an official historical event called the Armenian Genocide.   On this, the centennial of the start of the massacres,  the "Forget-me-not" flower has been declared the official flower symbolizing life and the forever memory of all the lost lives. It is usually a purple hue but this one I found is more of a blue periwinkle.  Nonetheless, I found this delicate wildflower to be lovely enough to add to my garden collection.