“Armenian people are very դիմացկուն, unbreakable. After all this we are still here. In fact the only thing more unbreakable than us is a rock.”

In the Lori province, nestled into the grand mountains that surround it, there is a city called Spitak. About a five minute drive away from the city there are small temporary container homes that were constructed by the Italian government after the earthquake.

I was walking on the trodden pathways through the grids of homes trying to find Gexec and Agho’s home. Agho had served during the war and had come back to his wife, Gexec, and two kids with a leg injury.

After stopping to ask for directions from the house that I thought was the correct one, a man standing in the next row of houses said, “Follow me.”

Walking slowly with a crutch and a limp, he led me to a house with a curtain shading the open door. “There you are!” and he also entered.

Agho sat with a white button down shirt and an optimistic smile on the couch. His crutch was perched to the right.

As the little baby reached out his hands towards me, Geghec said, “Daniel is a պայքարած երեխա, a child who has fought.”

For a baby that was born the day after the war ended, prematurely with COVID, he seemed to not only be a baby who had fought like his dad, but also a miracle.

However, after hearing the full story of his mom and dad, it seemed to me that the whole family was a miracle family.

Both Agho (Axabek) and Geghec (Geghecik) were born in Spitak.

Up until the 8th month of pregnancy, Geghec and Agho didn’t know the sex of the baby. The war had already started and Agho was serving on the frontlines where he had been on duty since 2019. Because of where we was, he hadn’t been able to call.

“We would say, if it’s a girl, it’s a girl. If it’s a boy, it’s a boy. But during the war, I was all alone,” commented Geghec.

“Vera would go to school and who could I spill my heart to? I was praying to God, to bring Agho back to us and to his child.”

When Geghec went to get a sonography and found out the sex of the baby, Agho called the next day.

“When I found out we were having a boy, I wanted to fight harder so I could come back. I met a lot of amazing guys during the service and we became very close. Many of them died and stayed there. It’s hard to tell all that I have seen but God helped me through it all. Who else can help in those moments? It’s only through God that I am here.”

Geghec chirped in from the kitchen: “He was surrounded, too, in Jabrayil. Of the nine of them, only four of them survived.”

Even with the joys of being reunited, the hardships didn’t end. Geghec had gotten very sick with COVID-19 and Agho was continuing his checkups and procedures.

“When they signed the papers and ended the war on the 9th of November, I cried so much during the night.

The next morning, Agho and I had gone to the military hospital in Vanadzor since Agho was feeling pain.

However while at the hospital, my water broke! So we rushed to another hospital and the doctors saved me and Daniel with a cesarean section. When I knew I had had a baby, I became so happy.

Daniel, the little smiling boy, was in his dad’s hands now as Agho sitting on the couch tried to make him dance in the air. I couldn’t help but think, if the sniper had shot just a few feet in another direction, Agho wouldn’t be sitting in front of me now, holding his child. Vera wouldn’t be able to look up at her dad. Geghec would be raising these two children alone. Geghec continued sharing her experience: “On top of the traumas I experienced during the earthquake in 1988 so many years ago, I experienced new traumas from this war. Every time I hear someone was shot, even someone I don’t know, I start crying. You can’t imagine the emotional traumas that we went through. I wouldn’t want others to feel what I felt. And my Daniel, lived through it all.” Little Daniel played with his dad’s face as his mother spoke.

Agho commented: “Armenian people are very դիմացկուն, durable/unbreakable. After all this we are still here. In fact the only thing more unbreakable than us is a rock.”

This family was a miracle family. Having survived the earthquake, COVID, the war, and now facing the hardships of moving forward with an injured veteran, they continued to hold fast to optimism and hope.

I didn’t know how to put into words the feelings I was feeling so I told them, “It’s truly incredible the things you have told me.” Geghec said, “Well, Agho is our hero, and I am the hero’s wife. “No Geghec,” I said. “You are also a hero. You and your family.”

Leaving the house and this small family, I remembered amusedly the two responses from Geghec and Agho about what they wished for Armenians around the world.

“I would want all Armenians to be united. Because that’s the one thing that will help us be able to fight with all our might, if we unite with one spirit. After all, there is a great love in the Diaspora for Armenia,” offered Geghec.

Agho in three words said, “Խելք, միայն խելք։ Brains, only brains.”