Spring Break Sighs

Spring Break: The pinnacle week of every college student’s academic year. It’s what is most looked forward to next to the end of finals and the beginning of the careless, free summer months of beaches and outdoor concerts, traveling and unwinding at home.

Since my school is Catholic, they appropriate our Spring Break according to Easter, and since Easter was early this year, so was Spring Break. In fact, in two days, it will be over, and I’ll be climbing the steep hills on College Hill once more, chasing down every minute of every day, and going to sleep at night with hunger pains for a nice, warm, home-cooked meal.

That’s all fine and good, and such is life, vacations always have an end. But looking back on this past week, on my Spring Break this year, I have bittersweet emotions. Contrary to what I had planned all year, of flying out to visit my best friend who recently moved to Chicago, I ended up spending Spring Break at home, in quiet old Connecticut. For one thing, I felt I needed the rest, and boy did I ever. I came home coughing and wheezing, and it turns out I had (and still have, I guess) asthmatic bronchitis! Some Spring Break, huh? I feel like I spent half my week breathing into tubes, being told by my doctor that I was failing breathing tests miserably, and going for chest X-rays checking for pneumonia (luckily, I’m pneumonia-free…a welcome bit of news). Thankfully, with medicine and inhalers, I’m much better, and should be able to take the steps at Holy Cross two at a time again before I know it.

Essentially, I mention all this simply to say that this week didn’t go as planned, and compared to my roommates who were in Ireland, England, and Italy, it definitely was pretty sub-par in adventures and excitement. But I got to spend it at home, and it turns out that was adventuresome enough. Even though I couldn’t leave my house much, we had a lot of visitors. We were even supposed to have a guest from California stay the whole week. She is the sister of one of my father’s high school classmates from Cyprus (my dad went to an Armenian boarding school in Cyprus) thirty years ago. Though my parents had never met this lady – they knew her sister, but not her – when they found out she would be on the East Coast selling art in an art show in New York City, they immediately invited her to stay with us and vacation – yes, some people do vacation in Connecticut – the week following. So, that’s how the week was supposed to be – a cheerful one for my family, especially for my parents to reminisce, share stores, and catch up on thirty years’ worth of life experiences, as well as a cheerful one for this lady visitor. But alas, expectations are to be broken when reality sets in, and that’s what happened this week.

This lady came to us, but she left within 24 hours. Her brother was on his deathbed in Canada, and she could not bare the idea of not being there with her family. So, unbeknownst to either of my parents, she bought a ticket to Canada to leave the very afternoon after she had just arrived at our house the night before. Naturally, my parents were sad to see her go, but we all understood. But rather than driving her to the airport, my father ended up driving her somewhere else that night. She was so upset, so utterly depressed, devastated, lonesome – and quite frankly, lost – that my father told her he would drive her to Canada – a not so insubstantial 6 ½ hour drive from our humble home in southwestern Connecticut. Though she refused, he pressed her, and she eventually gave in. Before I knew it, I was off scurrying around the house (mind you, I was doing the best that I could with my asthmatic condition), making preparations for them to be off on their way as soon as possible.

I suppose, for those people who are unaware of this, I should mention that my father is an Armenian Orthodox priest. At the thought of an Armenian priest saying a prayer over her dying brother, our guest really could not refuse my father’s offer to go with her to Canada. And so they were off in a whirl – my parents, and this sweet lady, whose suffering I was conscious of, but I really could not relate to.

Twenty-eight hours later, my parents were back home. Except for an hour that my mother had slept, they had each been awake for a nearly solid 48 hours. They, of course, told us how they had met the family, my father had seen his classmate from thirty years ago, and just like any group of Armenians would do, they were welcomed into their home for the night. But one thing led to another, and before my parents knew it, they were awake the whole night, listening to the outpouring grief of these people. I don’t know much about what they talked about – I can’t fathom it, nor is it my business to know. But I do know that in my parents’ company – my parents who most of this family was meeting for the very first time – these people found consolation, and their grief found a channel of expression. More exhausted than their drive, I think my parents were exhausted by what they had seen and heard. What I can make of my parents’ brief road trip to Canada, is that they witnessed how death unites a family, how it weakens them only to strengthen them, and how it humbles them to yearn for the company of others, even of people one might have just met.

And if there is something I have learned from my parents, it is what it means to be selfless. Out of complete disregard for themselves, they nurtured a hurting soul with their attention and care. I know they’re my parents and I might seem biased, but come on -- in today’s busy and self-involved society, where deadlines and responsibilities are looming and obligatory, how many people do you know that would drop everything to help an almost total stranger as they did?

So, while this Spring Break was not at all what I had anticipated – it was certainly sadder and more inactive than I imagined it would be - it was quite an adventuresome week. I myself did not travel anywhere, literally. But I do feel as though I had quite a spring forward on that sojourn towards becoming a more mature person. So top that, all of you bound for Spring Break in Cancun!

By Ani Nalbandian  |  March 7, 2008; 10:10 PM ET  | Category:  Orthodox Idyll Save & Share:                 
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