“I get terrified by the idea that March 1 is approaching, I don’t want it, because on March 1 I will relive this same pain and suffering.”

A year of pain and suffering began for 33-year old Lilit Dalaloyan when a 10 p.m. phone call was the last she heard of her husband, David Petrosyan.

As the black anniversary approaches, the widow recalls going into the night in search of her husband who had said he was on his way home. After he hadn’t shown for more than an hour Lilit and 13-year old son Varuzhan caught a taxi and went looking. . .

In the center of Yerevan, on the intersection of Kievyan and Baghramyan streets, they were sobered by military cars and policemen, and Lilit’s anxiety worsened.

“It looked like a battlefield. I came round for an instant, and I thought I shouldn’t be taking my child along. I phoned my aunt’s daughter, and she asked me if I’d come over to her. I asked if anything was wrong with David. She said no, that he just got hit in the leg with a club.”

Arriving at the uncle’s house Lilit learned the truth that her husband had been taken to hospital and the injury was a gunshot.

“The husband of my uncle’s daughter took us to the hospital. I said – take me to my David – they made us wait for half an hour on the ground floor, my heart was sinking. I was pacing back and forth frantically, until a girl came after us and we went upstairs. The doctors entered the room one by one, closed the door and said – he had a kidney surgery – and I said – I’m ready to be a donor, take my kidney, quick – they shook their heads. I looked into the eyes of one of the doctors and I said – My David is no longer alive? – the doctor nodded…everything blackened before my eyes . . .”

According to David’s wife Lilit, David, 33, appeared in the center of events, because he was coming home from work. He was a goldsmith and worked at the gold market on Khorenatsi Street. As usual, he walked from work to Mashtots Avenue, from where there are more mini-buses going to the bus stop near their house at late hours.

She sits near the TV David bought for the family two days before his death, surrounded by photos that are her last images of the man she was married with and loved.

“We were very happy,” she says. “Words fail me to describe how much. He used to say ‘It’s you I live and breathe by’.”

Lilit says her grief was overwhelming and that for eight months she locked herself at home until she realized that his death was killing her, too, and that she had to think of her son.

“When I went out I saw that people don’t want to communicate with me any longer, because I looked so miserable. I decided to wear a mask, to act, so that they would stop avoiding me. I put on my ‘mask’ and go out, I talk to everybody, and sometimes I laugh, then I come home, take the mask off and lock myself out in my house again,” Lilit says, crying.

“Until now I cannot believe that he is no longer alive, I make coffee – two cups, because I think he is sitting on the sofa waiting for coffee, the door opens and I say – Dav? – every time I think he’s coming. He used to say to me: ‘Lilit, swear that only death will part us’.’

“And it did.”