Three apples fell from the sky

When I arrived in Hayastan the summer of 2018, it had been 17 years since I had seen my family. I held my grandmother’s hands, our eyes searched, souls meeting once again. 

“Gayane, what do you like to do?” she had asked me in 2001 as we crossed the overgrown grass, taking over the tsli ardzan (“King Trdat Defeats the Bull”), steadily making our way over to the bazaar/shuka. We stepped through the opening ripped into the side of the chain-link fence that surrounded the statue. “I like to play and scream,” I replied giddily as we rounded the corner hand-in-hand, navigating the broken sidewalk. She laughed out loud as we passed a papik selling fresh, warm semushka (sunflower seeds) wrapped in newspapers.