Nashua Telegraph, NH
Jan 10 2005
Love & survival
A Telegraph Column By Stacy Milbouer
My mother used to have this saying: `If everyone in the world put
their problems into a big hat, and were asked to choose one to keep,
they’d always choose their own.’ If you find yourself scratching your
head now, trying to figure out what she meant – welcome to the last
47 years of my life.
But every once in a while – like yesterday – the meaning of that
proverb is clear to me. A woman named Julie and a man named George
got married at The Courville at Nashua nursing home Sunday.
Julie Natchioni is 54 years old and a widow. George Kouchakdjian, is
59 and a widower. The Rhode Island couple chose to marry at what
might seem to be an unusual venue because George’s mother,
91-year-old Annette Kouchakdjian, is a resident there and is too
infirmed to travel. But she wanted very much to see her son married
and make sure he was happy.
Her son wasn’t that happy before he met Julie last summer. He was
still reeling from the 2002 death of his wife Karen, to whom he’d
been married for 37 years. The couple’s eldest son, Chris, was also
gone – dead in 1991 from a sudden heart attack that struck when he
was only 20 years old.
`I was miserable, despondent, depressed,’ said George, looking back
to that time.
But then two golfing friends had an idea. Marilyn knew this man, a
neighbor. And Ella had a niece. Maybe they should arrange a meeting.
`It was the first date I had been on and the first date George had
been on since our spouses,’ recalled Julie. George will tell you he
knew he wanted to marry Julie right away. `I could have stayed in
misery the rest of my life. I wasn’t doing well. But when I met
Julie, it made me stay in the present and look at the future
together.’
George credits any resilience he has to his mother, Annette. `She’s a
survivor in every sense of the word. She is remarkable.’ Annette
Kouchakdjian is remarkable. At her son’s wedding yesterday, she was
dressed in a pink, tan and blue brocade frock set off by a soft,
beaded sweater. She needed a walker and a wheelchair to get to the
room at the Courville that was transformed by the staff into a
miniature Armenian chapel.
Annette made the dress she wore to the wedding. She’s been sewing
since she was 12 and was living as a refugee with her mother in
Paris. The two were the only survivors of a family of 13, that was
forced by the Turkish government to walk through the Syrian desert
during the Armenian genocide that began in the early years of the
20th century.
In fact, Annette, who was 10 at the time, watched her father and 10
siblings starve to death. But she and her mother began life again in
Paris, where the girl who was so good with a needle and thread began
a career that would span decades and help her family survive in times
of need. It was in Paris that she met her husband, Caloust, and gave
birth to two boys, Jacques and George.
Life is good, or so you’d think, for someone who had already dealt
with so much. But then Annette’s husband, a member of the French Army
during World War II, was captured and taken prisoner of war by the
Germans.
Annette was alone in Nazi-occupied Paris with two small children. But
she hadn’t survived so much without learning a thing or two. This
time, instead of a needle and thread, she used her wits to survive.
She ate piping-hot bread just out of the oven and followed it with
ice-cold water. She did this again and again until she became very
ill. So ill, that the Germans allowed her husband to be released to
care for the children until she recovered. But as soon as he came
home, Annette had already arranged for her husband to escape to a
relative in the French countryside.
He hid there for two years until the family could move to New York
City. There – Annette took up her seamstress work again, landing
employment in some of the finest design houses in the city. Her
husband worked in hotels and the couple gave birth to their third
child – daughter Anita, who now lives in Hollis.
Eventually after a lifetime of hard work and raising children,
Annette and her husband moved to New Hampshire with her daughter and
son-in-law to retire. Caloust died 14 years ago, and Annette,
suffering from emphysema and other ailments, came to the Courville.
`She is a very, very strong woman,’ said Julie. `She has a will about
her that’s incredible. She’s extremely loving and giving as tough as
nails and funny as anything. Every week she gets her hair done and if
someone compliments her – `Hey Annette you’re hair looks pretty.’
She’ll say, `So do you have a boyfriend for me?’ ‘
Julie adored George from the moment she met him, but credits his
mother for yesterday’s nuptials.
`She wanted this so much, so we decided to do it.’
Sunday’s ceremony was officiated by a priest from the Armenian Church
in Watertown, Mass., who was able to get a dispensation from the
bishop to perform the marriage ceremony in a place other than a
church.
So this is a survivors’ tale on many levels. But it is far from grim.
At the wedding, George’s 30-year-old son, Alex, served as his best
man, while Annette’s best friend stood up for her. And George’s
sister, Anita, pretty much put the whole lovely day together.
Also in attendance, among the bride’s and groom’s siblings and loved
ones, were George’s late-wife’s family, who said they couldn’t be
happier for him. And, of course, there was Annette.
After the ceremony, the priest came over to her chair and gave her a
special blessing. In Armenian, he wished that she might live an even
longer life. And with a laugh she replied, `I had enough.’ Maybe. But
no one seems to have had enough of Annette.
`If she had said to me she was waiting to see George married again so
that she could finally die, we would have put the wedding off
forever,’ said the bride.
So going back to my mother’s saying, perhaps it should be rephrased
to represent the optimistic spirit that drives the lucky among us.
`If everyone in the world put all their blessings in one hat, and
then were asked to choose one to keep; they’d always choose their
own.’