Watching her son, Khajag, participate in the traditional Good Thursday washing of the feet ceremony at Montreal’s St-Gregory the Illuminator Armenian church brought back a flood of painful memories for Tsoulena Moughalian.
Almost exactly three years ago, on March 21, 2013, the Syrian-Armenian Montrealer saw Khajag, who was only 10 years old at the time, get hit in the leg by a sniper bullet in Aleppo, Syria.
“That was my ‘Mother’s Day gift’,” Moughalian laughed bitterly. “The sniper wanted to get my younger son too, but we managed to dash into an open doorway and escape.”
The sniper’s bullet had missed Khajag’s artery behind his right knee just by a hair and doctors worried he might never regain full use of his leg.
“I was so relieved when the surgeon came out and said my son will be OK,” Moughalian said.
Other mothers weren’t that lucky, she said.
They learned in the hospital that at least six children – Christians and Muslims – had been killed that day, part of a concerted campaign by rebels to crush the spirits of people in the government-controlled neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Moughalian said.
Khajag’s near-death experience was the last straw that forced Moughalian and her husband, Krikor Kehyaian, to pack up their belongings, take their two children and make the perilous journey from the besieged Aleppo to the relative safety of Lebanon.
The situation had become unbearable, with shelling and shrapnel hitting their house almost daily, Moughalian said.
Aleppo’s Midan neighbourhood where the majority of the city’s Armenians and other Christians lived had become one of the most contested battlegrounds of the Syrian civil war.
“We couldn’t stay anymore, we had to get out somehow, whether it was Canada or Lebanon or somewhere else,” Moughalian said. “It was either staying and dying or risking the trip out.”
Fortunately, Moughalian had relatives in Montreal, who together with the Hay Doun community organization sponsored them to come to Canada.
Moughalian and her family landed in Montreal on June 11, 2015 and life is slowly getting back to normal.
Moughalian is taking intensive French courses and hopes one day to resume her career as graphic designer. Her husband who had a metal-working business in Aleppo has found a job in his field, she said.
But best of all, her two sons love going to the Alex Manoogian Armenian school in Montreal, Moughalian said.
“They love their teachers there, they even play soccer with them,” Moughalian said. “They love going to school. In Aleppo teachers and the principal were much more formal and strict with children. It’s different here.”
It’s the family’s first Easter in Canada.
She took the boys for the washing of the feet ceremony on Thursday, Moughalian said
“When I saw him on the alter having his feet washed by the priest, I thanked God once again for sparing my son’s life, for getting us out of that barbarity,” Moughalian said. “I told my mom, ‘Look where we were and where we are now.’ I remembered those hospital visits. You never forget something like that. It was just a miracle.”
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