Mariam Nazaryan’s house, at the end of the Kars Highway in Gyumri, is surrounded by deserted fields. What seems like an unending expanse of graves stretches in the distance.

Stray dogs roam the environs.

Mrs. Nazaryan hurries out to greet us and escorts us inside. The dogs’ constant barking penetrates the walls of the makeshift abode.

A wood stove is placed on the uneven floor of the narrow room that serves as a kitchen, bathroom and living room. Mrs. Nazaryan’s eleven-year-old daughter Mariam sits next to her mother.  Mrs. Nazaryan’s seven-year-old son is in the next room, watching cartoons. The room is cold, and steam emanates from his lips when he talks about his favorite shows.

Mrs. Nazaryan’s husband left the family four years ago. We ask why. She responds curtly.

"Because my children had a few problems, I give that medicine to my children," she says pointing to a bottle on the table.

"What is the medicine?" I ask.

"It's for epilepsy," says Mariam, her lips trembling.

When Mariam got married, she didn’t know that her husband, his brother and other relatives were ill. She once saw her husband's brother shake, and it scared her.

"I’d never seen anything like that. I didn’t know what it was, I was very scared. I told my mother-in-law what happened. She said it was nothing,” Mrs. Nazaryan recounts.

A few years after the incident, Mrs. Nazaryan’s daughter, who was three at the time, started to experience convulsions. The mother, not knowing what it was, took the girl to a doctor. She was told the child had inherited the illness. Mrs. Nazaryan says her husband and mother-in-law categorically deny this.

Months later, her husband's health sharply deteriorated.

 "We had gone to the dental clinic. My husband had to get a tooth pulled. He started to convulse. I yelled at the dentist, wanting to know what was in the injection he gave my husband. The dentist explained my husband’s ailment. I finally understood,” says Mrs. Nazaryan.

Relations between the spouses soon deteriorated. Some four 4 years later, when the couple’s daughter was in the first grade and their son was three years old, the father left.

"One day he came home and said he was going abroad to find work. He packed his bags and left," says Mrs. Nazaryan. She’s been a mother and a father to her children since. "I told them that if you feel the need to say the word father, you can call me that me," she says.

She doesn’t want to talk about how she met the father of her children. “That person no longer exists for me,” she says.

When asked how she manages to raise her children on her own, Mrs. Nazaryan says she must stay strong for her kids.

 The family receives 28,000 drams monthly in government benefits. Mrs. Nazaryan wants the children to obtain disability status, thus allowing them to receive a pension as well.

Mrs. Nazaryan has applied to the Gyumri Municipality for firewood to heat the home. None was provided. Last year, the Shirak Provincial Administration allocated some firewood. This year, Shirak Center NGO President Vahan Tumasyan donated the much-needed fuel.

Before the birth of her children, Mrs. Nazaryan worked as a tree cultivator. Now, she’s busy raising them. She only has time to raise a few animals on the side. She shows us the iron pen she made where he keeps some chickens, ducks and pigs.

The children's education is a priority for Mrs. Nazaryan. She takes the children to the Shirak Child Support Center where they help with the preparation of lessons. they also provide psychological support.

Mrs. Nazaryan says that she does not communicate with many outsiders, just the employees of the center who have become like sisters to her. Even when she takes the children to Yerevan for medical exams one of the staffers always accompanies her.

The single mother says that the children’s health has improved after a Yerevan medical center prescribed some new medicine. She gets the medicine for free but must pay 12,000 drams when it’s not available from the government.

When asked about her hopes for the future, Mrs. Nazaryan doesn’t have to think twice.

“My dream is for my children to be well, for this house to be fixed up a bit. But I’m just not able to, either physically or financially. But I’ll never give up hope.”