There is an inescapable spell of grief in the narratives of most Armenians who lived at the dawn of the 20th century. Every family, it seems, has a haunting story of loss. Everyone has a great-grandfather who had stared death in its callous jaws. Everyone has a great-grandmother who had buried a husband, a brother, a child, while resolving to survive with fierce dignity for the sake of the living. My family is no different.