Day 40 – April 3, 2010
Mommy, I’m so thirsty. I want a drink.
Susanna Petroysan heard her daughter’s pleas, but there was nothing she could do. She and four-year-old
Gayaney were trapped beneath tons of collapsed concrete and steel. Beside them in the darkness lay the
body of Susanna’s sister-in-law, Karine, one of the 55,000 victims of the worst earthquake in the history
of Soviet Armenia.
Susanna had gone to Karine’s house to try on a dress. It was December 7, 1988, at 11:30 a.m. The quake
hit at 11:41. She had just removed the dress and was clad in stockings and a slip when the fifth-floor
apartment began to shake. Susanna grabbed her daughter but had taken only a few steps before the floor
opened up and they tumbled in. Susanna, Gayaney, and Karine fell into the basement with the nine-story
apartment house crumbling around them.
Mommy, I need a drink. Please give me something.
There was nothing for Susanna to give. She was trapped flat on her back. A concrete panel eighteen
inches above her head and a crumpled water pipe above her shoulders kept her from standing. Feeling
around in the darkness, she found a twenty-four ounce jar of blackberry jam that had fallen into the
basement. She gave the entire jar to her daughter to eat. It was gone by the second day.
Mommy, I’m so thirsty.
Susanna knew she would die, but she wanted her daughter to live. She found a dress, perhaps the one she
had come to try on, and made a bed for Gayaney. Though it was bitter cold, she took off her stockings and
wrapped them around the child to keep her warm. The two were trapped for eight days. Because of the
darkness, Susanna lost track of time. Because of the cold, she lost the feeling in her fingers and toes.
Because of her inability to move, she lost hope. “I was just waiting for death.”
She began to hallucinate. Her thoughts wandered. A merciful sleep occasionally freed her from the horror
of her entombment, but the sleep would be brief. Something always awakened her: the cold, the hunger,
or most often, the voice of her daughter.
Mommy, I’m thirsty.
At some point in that eternal night, Susanna had an idea. She remembered a television program about an
explorer in the Arctic who was dying of thirst. His comrade slashed open his hand and gave his friend his
blood. “I had no water, no fruit juice, no liquids. It was then I remembered I had my own blood.” Her
groping finger, numb from the cold, found a piece of shattered glass. She sliced open her left index finger
and gave it to her daughter to suck. The drops of blood weren’t enough. “Please, Mommy, some more.
Cut another finger.” Susanna has no idea how many times she cut herself. She only knows that if she
hadn’t, Gayaney would have died. Her blood was her daughter’s only hope.
Prayer: Father, just like this story, it is Jesus’ blood that gives us life. We live in a world of thirsty souls,
looking for the water of life. You offer that life through your son Jesus Christ. Help us, your sons and
daughters, to offer that life to those who thirst.
Submitted by: Rev. Ronnie G. Collins. Inspired by a true story.
