John F. Kennedy Airport is a reservoir of people with many objectives. Men and women desperately await their luggage and struggle to discover their loved ones amidst frenzied surroundings. In the year 2000 a girl of 14, holding in her arms a collection of personal belongings too fragile to place in her luggage, stands alone. She is uncertain of her next step. Ashley Azizian, with her short, jet-black hair and emerald-green eyes, finds herself lost in new territory. Joining the crowd around her she attempts, with little success, to locate her suitcase amidst all the other possessions in baggage claim. She asks nearby airport personnel to assist her in her quest but finds that few strangers are willing to help a lost foreigner. At long last, she locates her mother in a frantic throng, and they gather her belongings and together enter the outside world.
As the daughter of a neurologist and a prominent plastic surgeon, Ashley’s life in Moscow was, up to a point, one of stability and accomplishment. However, with her parents’ divorce, the foundation of her very existence was shaken. She found herself living the life of a nomad. Whether attending boarding school in Switzerland or temporarily living with her grandparents in Armenia, home became an undefined term.
At age 15, Ashley decided to join her mother in the United States. For as long as she can remember in America, it has always been her and her mom fighting to survive in unknown territory. As her mother worked to establish a career for herself as a doctor in an alien country, Ashley struggled to create an entirely new life in a society whose values and traditions differ immensely from her own. As a young teenager, she noticed many differences between the lives of her friends in Moscow and those in the United States. Kids drank in Moscow, but in comparison American high school kids were far more involved with drugs and entertainment. Life in America was also faster paced than anything she had seen in Moscow.
Day to day, Ashley lived her life constantly comparing her new environment with what she once knew. As she pushed her way through crowded hallways and hectic classrooms, she met one unfamiliar face after another. As the distance between herself and the people she once considered vital to her life became more apparent, she realized that her world was changing. Over time, in sporadic phone calls, she became aware that friends and family back in Moscow seemed to have forgotten about her.
She recognized that “though they are still important, distance makes it difficult to maintain relationships with people one has little in common with anymore.”
Ashley, a woman devoted to painting and classical music, has always been an avid risk taker and thrill seeker. She has always been recognized as an individual who values life and all it has to offer. However, regardless of her innate zest for life, one destructive thought remained with her: “I can always go back.”
Ashley and her mom depended on each other to carry on. They lived their lives as a team, always making decisions together but knowing that if Ashley stepped out of line, her mother would tell her. Her mom became not only a great friend, but also, amazingly, the support system that nourished, advised, disapproved and, most importantly, taught.
In their new surroundings they developed routines. Every Friday, they watched a movie at the local theater, then woke the next day to go shoe shopping at a nearby department store like Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s. If one of them was upset, they always bought more shoes and more clothes.
Ashley attributed a bewildering number of her possessions to that time alone with her mother: It was their way to cope and help one another get past the letdowns of immigration. It was them against everyone else, and they were determined to thrive. They acted more like friends than anything else; they talked about everything that was on their minds and shared anything they felt the other should know. To this day, Ashley admits she has a tendency to pry into her mother’s personal life.
Her mother became an established double board-certified medical doctor in the United States, and Ashley was well on her way to becoming a doctor herself. But a void remained that threatened their happiness and accomplishments. As Ashley grew more and more accustomed to her new life, it became clear that she was missing an important part of her adolescence. At times she wanted to go out and party with her peers, but she refused. She felt guilty that her mother would be spending the night alone in an empty house while she was enjoying herself. At the same time, her mother felt unfulfilled at the lack of excitement and contentment in her own life. Though the two maintained a strong relationship, it was difficult to sacrifice leisure and dutifully spend every waking moment with one person.
Eventually, fate stepped in. Ashley and her mom met a middle-aged man by the name of Sant at the St. Thomas Armenian Church in Tenafly, N.J. They invited him for dinner, at which point they assessed every minor detail about him. They spent the entire day preparing hot borsht, roasted chicken, mouth-watering pasta, and a variety of salads and side dishes. Ashley recalled the abundance of food and excitement during dinner.
“Poor guy, we made him eat so much he couldn’t stand up.”
Sant left a lasting first impression upon both mother and daughter. Ashley saw in her mother a sense of happiness that she felt had faded over the past few years.
After hours of cross-examination and conversation, it seemed as though Ashley and her mother were about to create a family for themselves that had never truly existed before. Soon after, Sant and Ashley’s mom married. Sant proved to be the last missing link in their mother-daughter relationship.
Tanya Fooks is a student at Rutgers-Newark. Posted January 2006.
