MOTHER AND SON ON THE FRONTLINE…

The tall, blond and blue-eyed soldier obviously became more stretched and stronger. There is uncontrollable longing in his eyes and impatient, childish mischievous smile: he is prepares a surprise. This will be the first meeting with his mother, Zaruhi, after a long and difficult separation of nine months. The soldier is on vacation…

The saleswoman in the flower shop has already understood what is going on. She is helping to choose the most beautiful bouquet, saying, “You do not need to pay, hurry!”

Mother’s colleagues honestly kept the secret, and so did we. Zaruhi leaves the office and freezes on the doorstep: the soldier son is standing in front of her… The meeting is heartwarming. The mother and the son can’t help staying together. The secret is revealed from the words exchanged: Zaruhi too was not left out of the war, as a nurse, she volunteered and left for Artsakh from the very first days of the war. In another hot part of the border, he saved the lives of soldiers and took care of them like a mother. And during the phone conversations with his son, she did not say a word about where she was, so as not to bother him again. It is a war. Thus, mother and son fought in two parts of the border, one with a weapon, the other with motherly love and care.

Our acquaintance with mother and son is three years old. When I first met Zaruhi, we were traveling together to Artsakh for the swearing-in ceremony of Arman, her son, who was enlisted in the “I am” program. Arman was one of the first to express readiness to carry out a three-year combat duty on the Artsakh border with this program. He served excellently, he showed himself as an exemplary soldier, and these last few months have become a real test for a young soldier.

We would know from them, Arman and Zaruhi, what the single mother and her only son went through during the war.

“It was the 27th. We were in a position,” says Arman, “I was busy with everyday affairs when I suddenly heard an unusually loud explosion. The head of the position was next to me. He immediately gave an alarm signal. That’s how the war started for me…

What I saw was only in documentaries about the April Four-Day War. I will never forget the feeling when the enemy’s hardware is working on you and you realize that you are no longer in a military school, but everything is real. The fiercest battles were in the direction of Hadrut. One of our friends was wounded, the other received a serious head injury while rushing to his weapon. We did not manage to help him, he died…

We got more sober when we began losing firends, we were gaining strength, we wanted to reach the enemy quickly, to take revenge on our friends. Our spirit did not fall. We would go to the end… I understood the sweetness of a friend for the first time then. When you see that he was hit next to you, he fell and he needs you… You bandage him, you talk to him, you take him out of that situation, you give him spirit. Of course, the physical pain will not be alleviated, but your friend must feel that he is not alone, that you are by his side, that you are ready to give your life for him…

If they tell me I am needed, I will go right now. I do not need anything. Give me my clothes and my weapons, and I will go. I have seen everything, I have gone through everything, I have felt it on my skin…

I remember most of my killed friends in sleepless nights… Good friends … with whom I slept, woke up, shared bread. With whom I have shared sorrow and joy. By keeping each other, we have maintained our position.

Our spirits were high. The enemy bullets could pass by me, under my arms, near my heads, but to the end the boys were fighting in spirit. They did not die, they died, they became heroes, because we never showed our backs to the enemy.

We learned that our wounded friends were taken to the Muratsan Hospital. My mother told me that she had volunteered, but because they knew that she had a fighting soldier. They were not allowed to go to Artsakh. They said she could go to Kanaz polyclinic or Muratsan hospital. She said. “I chose Muratsan because there was an acquaintance there.” I thought, I will find out from my mother how our boys are in the hospital. I called and said. “Mom, now I will give names, they are our boys, I do not know that they are in the department. Find out where they are and how they are.” It was October 24. “Yeah, my son, I’ll find out, I’ll tell you.” The next day I called. “Well, Mom, is there anything new?” “From what?” “Well, from our boys.” She said “Hold on” and turned off. She called in 15 minutes. “I did not go, one of our nurses did. She talked to everyone, they are fine. No need to worry”: I went to happily tell our boys that the boys were good. They looked at me in surprise. “Who did you ask about?” I gave names, they said. “But they’ve been home for a few days now.” There was doubt in me. Besides, my mother sometimes called from an Artsakh number. One day I asked, “Where are you?” She said. “They brought me to Vardenis for a few days, then I will go back.” I thought, “Well, you don’t want to, don’t say, okay.” It was November 24. I called and said, “Mom, you know, the war is over.” Now tell me, let me see where you have been. ” She said. “Well, I will say. I was in Artsakh, in Karvachar.” She was there until November 10. … She sent me her uniform on the 18th of the month. It was also suspicious, because She said it was from the store, but I saw that it was not new. A pin came out of its pocket…

Zaruhi, who worked as a nurse in one of the operating rooms of the 8th Hospital for many years, as soon as she heard about the war, hurried to join one of the detachments and leave for the front line. By the way, one day before the war I saw her photo on Facebook and I was very surprised. She was dressed as a coronavirus paramedic. I learned from her that at the height of the epidemic, she was not left out of the front lines of this “war front” as a nurse volunteered to fight against this evil that had plagued the world. And as soon as the war started, she left for the front…

– At first I felt helpless for a while. I am a woman, taking up arms is not mine. But the biggest, most important part of my heart, my son, was where there was fighting, destruction: I gathered all my strength. I realized that as a nurse I had to go and take part in the defense of my homeland. I still wanted to go in the 1990s, but I was a surgery nurse. They did not let me go, I needed to go there too.

This time, however, no one was able to stop me. I was thinking of putting on a bandage, at least with motherly mercy, telling a wounded man that everything would be fine, I would be useful in one thing. I have not heard from my son for eight days. I felt like an alien. I knew I could not go to the same place, I would not want to. He should have thought about the homeland, the friends who support him. my presence would only distract him. And I thought it was right, I would go to another front, I would do my part, he would do his job. I joined one of the detachments as a nurse. I got together very quickly, wrote a “letter-explanation” to my son, of course, deciding that I would definitely come back, I would not let him read my letter…

I had no doubts. If you go to war, then you have to have everything in front of your eyes. We got there. We had a wonderful doctor at the Karvachar Field Hospital, where I worked as a nurse. At first it was a bit unusual to wear clothes, armor, but soon I realized that it was impossible without it. And you have to stay alive because they need you. I worked in a field hospital for a month and five days. I will never forget the unbreakable will of our boys… If the shrapnel wound was not very serious, they hurried and asked us to clean the wound quickly. “We clean, you can sew” so we can rejoin our friends soon.

We were transferred to Sarushen for seven days. Our guys got to the positions. A wounded man was brought that day. We turned the garage into an operating room. He was a thin, thin boy, but he was impatient and determined to go back quickly. The doctor removed the fragments from his hand… There, as a mother, I was very sad. I was looking at the boy’s wounds and his impatience, and my heart was bleeding. Then I gathered myself. I decided that I should look at it more calmly. It is a war. It was very hard for me especially when our wonderful doctor was killed. We were in Sarushen. A soldier had received a conculsion at the positions, he rushed to the aid and fell under the shelling while returning with the ounded. The wounded man was saved, but our doctor, Hayk Mikaelyan… He was an emergency doctor, a very good person…

I was not only a nurse, I worked as a mother too. I cooked dinner for my boys, it is true that food was always delivered, but I wanted to feed my sons at home. One day, when I went to take temperatures in the morning, one of my soldiers said: “I do not have a mother, can I call you a mother?” “If my mother knew I was in such safe hands, she would definitely feel good.” It gave a lot of strength to my boys that there is a woman next to them who cares about them.

I was there for one month and 5 days. I should have gone on vacation, but I did not want to. My heart was heavy. It was the 10th of November, I was on my way back when we learned that…

Arman has a “short” vacation. He still has some time to serve until he is demobilized and returns home. And during this time, Zaruhi will give her share of motherly love to her son. She will prepare her home-cooked meals for him, will treat his invisible wounds…

By KNAR TADEVOSYAN