Untold Story

Hi Dear Ones,

So, things have settled down. Yes the injustice is ridiculous and many people still do not know what is going on, how for example people are getting arrested and/or beaten up for nothing as they walk down a street or when thet are holding vigil for the people who they lost to murder.

But not being sarcastic, things are ok. The military has dispersed and the streets feel safe to walk in. It is Spring and it is beautiful.

I love my new job and overall really loving life. But today's blog is a necessary story that you all deserved to hear a long time ago. It is the story that brought me here. So please read and if moved, respond.
Thank you.
Viktoria

Five months ago after sharing my story around a table I was asked to write it down. Five months later, I finally could. This is the story that has brought me to Armenia.

My father was an orphan born and raised on the street of Yerevan. Immediately after he was born, his father left him and his mother. Dad’s mother was a unique woman for that time. She was the professor of pedagogy at Yerevan State University and a divorced woman who took care of her child without anyone’s help. She had no family or relatives. She was independent and strong. Despite her strength, she knew she was dying. Out of love for her son, she tried to kill him with a fire poker. She managed to crack open my dad’s skull but surprisingly he healed. Till this day, he has a scar across his face and head. I only found out how he got it from my mother at age twenty three. My grandmother tried to kill my father because she knew that once she died he would be absolutely alone and it would be better for him to be dead rather than being alone in this harsh world.

When dad was ten, she died, leaving him to raise himself. On her deathbed, she told him that he has a father, that he is alive, and that he lives in Vilnius, Lithuania. Despite all odds, my dad was consumed by a passion to survive so one day he can save up enough money to finally meet and be with his father. To support himself, he worked during the day, gaining a specialization as a diamond setter and jeweler and at night, was a student. Everyday my father struggled to survive: fighting on the streets of Yerevan, jumping from one orphanage to another, sleeping on couch to couch; although, there was one person in his life that looked after him as best she could, that was his best friend’s mother. As soon as the possibility arose, my father lived on his own in an apartment; a child that was waiting to see his father.

By age seventeen my dad did not have to wait any longer. He made enough jewelry and set off to Lithuania to meet his father. He found him, but unfortunately his father did not believe this boy that claimed to be his son. Broken, my dad continued on. He became a successful jeweler and at age twenty he met my mother and married her. By the time I was born he thought he would try to convince his father again, the second time needed no convincing. As soon as his father saw the baby, he knew she was his grandchild. With this new understanding he saw my father as if for the first time and realized he was his son.
Unfortunately the connection was made a little too late because shortly after, my father, mother, half-brother and I immigrated to the United States where we lost all contact with my grandfather. My father has not seen or heard of him in the last twenty years. We did not know (knock on wood) if he was even alive.

For the first time since we immigrated, my mother and I went back to Vilnius, Lithuania to see the place of our birth. As soon as I arrived, I opened up the telephone directory to find my last name, “Simonyan.” There he was, in black and white. So I called and he answered. Later that day my mother and I sat across the table from my grandfather, Misha Jan. He only drank grapefruit juice as I ate the ice cream he insisted on ordering for me. I couldn’t really taste it though because of the tears that were constantly streaming down my face. Till this day I cannot understand how I did not even know the man, but yet how deeply in love with him I was. I never had a grandfather and here he was sitting right in front of me. The same obnoxious smile my dad has. I was looking at my father! How could blood be so strong? So much abandonment, but yet all that remained was love.

I told him I was leaving in a month for Yerevan, Armenia to volunteer for a year. He was very happy for me. Then came shocking news… “I have a sister and three daughters. I’ll give you their information” he said. “Wait a second, here I am sitting in front of the man that is responsible for me having a big nose and he’s telling me I have family? I always wanted family! Whoa, this trip to Armenia just turned into something else” I thought.

When I came to my grandfather’s apartment it was as if I stepped into an art gallery. On his walls hung masterpieces of detailed metal work made into portraits and landscapes. “What is going to happen to your art? When will it return to Armenia to your family?” I asked. “Things aren’t so simple” is all he replied. I later found out that his life’s work was all taken from him by the USSR because it was considered to be Soviet property since he was Armenia’s national artist at the time. Till this day, no pieces have been returned.

In the end of September I arrived in Yerevan. Then began the unraveling of relationships to my new, yet old family. The first people I called are those who I am closest to now: my grandfather’s sister and her daughter’s family. The best way to describe them is open arms accepting me simply as their own, because I am. The craziest thing is I look so much like the middle daughter who will have her first child in a month (May)! Our eyebrows even slant the same way when we laugh. I am expected to share every Sunday with them just as I am expected to be with them throughout the entire process when their grandfather died (my grandfather’s sister’s husband). We laugh together, scream together. It’s real.

I also met my aunts. It’s interesting to see my grandfather in female form. To be completely honest I can’t help feeling hurt and confused when I am with them, wondering to myself, “How could you leave my father alone when he needed you most?” But then I remember that they were only children and secondly, they didn’t know he existed.

I also have cousins, real cousins! I never had cousins before. I would be lying if I said that I am extremely close to all my family. This is not true. What is true is that I have been given an opportunity to explore these gifts. These people are like priceless packages with infinite gifts inside which I am savoring as I open. I am taking my time with sensitivity in getting to know these people that share my grandfather’s name. It is surreal to be able to sit in a taxi with a friend, look out the window and then turn and say, “Hey, there goes my cousin passing by.” This happened.

Growing up, my dad did not even allow the word “Armenia” in the house because it brought all the pain and suffering he experienced as a child. It took my father a year to give his blessing for me to come here and only after that was he able to open up and claim he is ready to return. Now that I am here, walking the land of my family and getting to know them and touch them I am ready to complete my dream…

I want to bring my father home to the land where he is from and was left abandoned, so Armenia can mean something else to him… and to bring my grandfather back to the land from which he is from to reunite him with his sister, daughters, grandchildren and most importantly, his son. I feel I have been given the responsibility of bringing them together.

I pray my father to return to the land where he experienced so much harm, so that he may heal in the arms of his father that has never held him before, so he may heal in the presence of his father that has never been present before. May the child in my dad that waited so long not have to wait any longer. And may the absence of family in his life be filled with each current member as they stand witness to this reunion.

This is my dream, my mission and our land that I am standing on now… I feel so close to it happening! I just need help. With the belief that this entire process is something way beyond myself, I am able to ask for help. I am not seeking funds, which I know is exceedingly difficult during this depleting economic time. Instead, I am asking for miles. I am aware that people can acquire air miles through their business and personal use. If inspired, please donate your miles to my family so I can show my father his dad and my dream in our homeland can be complete. I hope to fly my father and grandfather to their reunion this summer at the end of my stay.

P.S. It is important to remember that this story that brought me to Armenia does not have a neat little “The End” on page four, but rather it is a living story that will continue to unravel down my family’s generations. I am just one part of this story, in hopefully the chapter entitled “The Reunion Back Home.” Although, there is an additional chapter I would like to contribute to and that is the one dedicated to my grandfather’s art. Somehow, someway I want to bring his work to Armenia and put on a gallery so in the end in can be in the arms of his loved ones. I do not want what happened the first time to repeat again. If anyone has any idea on how to go about something like this, please do not hesitate to share. Thank you…

Viktoria Simonyan