Hybrid: The transformation of a cross cultural people pleaser

By Lois Melkonian

Ever wonder...who am I?

So did Lois. When she turned nine she told people she was from Indiana because after immigrating to America her third grade teacher pointed out India was not on the map of the 50 United States, she must mean Indiana.

It really was much easier. After all her Armenian father born in Cyprus was working as a missionary in India when he met her Danish mother born in Denmark who was teaching at a boarding school. Who would believe her?

Raised in a clash of cultures, Lois grows up trying to be like everyone around her. Initially motivated by fear she progresses to people pleasing that creeps into control, until her life unravels. When she finally embraces her hybrid history, lives out the faith she never let go of, and engages in relationships with truth, she begins to understand why she is who she is, and she’s still working on it.

Hybrid: the transformation of a cross-cultural people pleaser is a self-deprecating and poignant memoir about an Armenian-Danish girl who really did believe the American dream and became an award-winning anchor and reporter on radio and television stations in San Francisco, Denver and Houston. Lois Melkonian speaks and blogs on her website Angels with Shoes about how every story matters, even hers, and how telling yours changes everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lois Melkonian
• Release date: Nov 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311249517

Lois Melkonian

Lois is an award winning broadcast journalist who’s been reporting and anchoring on radio and television for the past 30 years in Denver, San Francisco and Houston.Through all her experiences Lois recognizes that every story matters, and how sharing yours changes everything: from a company’s marketing and advertising efforts to personal matters of recovery and health.She just completed writing the book HYBRID: THE TRANSFORMATION OF A CROSS-CULTURAL PEOPLE PLEASER, which explores growing up as a third culture kid and how that’s impacted every decision in her life.Lois and her husband live in Denver where she loves to cycle, write, cook, garden and play.

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Hybrid: The transformation of a cross-cultural people pleaser

Copyright 2015 Lois Melkonian

Cover art by Carly Dutch-Greene

Published by Lois Melkonian at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One-A loud knock on the door

Chapter Two-Levon Melkonian was a rebel

Chapter Three-It’s called hygge

Chapter Four-A match made in India

Chapter Five-Born identity

Chapter Six-Leaving Lebanon

Chapter Seven-Colorado Springs

Chapter Eight-Modesto

Chapter Nine-Lois Melkonian was a rebel

Chapter Ten-Beef tongue – it’s what’s for dinner

Chapter Eleven-People pleaser

Chapter Twelve-A Christian college, a career and matrimony

Chapter Thirteen-Radio days

Chapter Fourteen-Bosnia and Beyond

Chapter Fifteen-I unraveled

Chapter Sixteen-Meeting my match

Chapter Seventeen-The Lone Star state

Chapter Eighteen-Alzheimer’s

Chapter Nineteen-Reconciliation

Chapter Twenty-Post-traumatic growth

Epilogue-The other side of the circle

Acknowledgements

About Lois Melkonian

Connect with Lois Melkonian

Introduction

Where are you from? A simple question, a complicated answer

Where are you from?

The man sitting next to me asks as our flight is about to land. I’m sure he’s trying to wrap up our conversation as we both head to different destinations and has no idea how loaded this question is for me. That’s because where I was born says nothing about me, or my heritage. I was born in India, is that what this man wants to know? But I’m not Indian. In fact the city in which I was born is now called Chennai so my birth certificate listing Madras, India as my birthplace refers to a bygone era on the face of it.

To tell this stranger I’m from India requires explanation and we are minutes from getting off the plane. One of my brothers told me years ago he deals with this question by answering he’s from Modesto, California. Since that’s where we became naturalized U.S. citizens and I spent half my childhood, I suppose he has a point. But as much as I adopted Modesto as the place for many of my formative relationships, education and life choices I have not called it home.

I enjoy sharing my background with people and I usually offer much more information than anyone bargains for. As we are pulling coats and bags from the overhead compartment I realize I don’t have time to impart details, even in abbreviated form. I smile as I realize he’s probably wondering why I haven’t responded to his question, I mean how hard is it to tell someone where you’re from?

Grabbing my carry-on bag I turn to look at him and my whirling thoughts subside into a clearheaded answer.

Denver, Colorado is where I live now, so that’s my home.

And for that instant it’s enough.

Making my way through customs and walking through the terminal I wonder why I just didn’t spit out where I was born and continue the conversation walking off the plane. Why today did I stop and hold these details?

Maybe because in this era of my life I’m wrestling with understanding how my heritage has influenced me. Maybe after all those years of therapy and group talk and community groups and close friends I’m getting a grip on why I am who I am. Maybe because being born in India to a Danish mother and an Armenian father and being raised all over the world, eventually in the United States, really does make me different.

There was a time when being different wasn’t comfortable for me. I should clarify that while I may not have appeared different on the surface, I knew deep in my heart that I wasn’t like my friends or neighbors. But whom could I tell? And what would I say? I did my best to fit in even if it meant creating stories just to make it through recess, or a class, or relationships, or life. I often struggled with my identity and felt ashamed of this person I was, so I self-soothed and became a people pleaser extraordinaire. Somewhere along the way I came to believe if I could make everyone around me happy I wouldn’t have to worry about what was crushing me internally. I was so concerned that I didn’t fit into a particular group that I wanted to be in everyone’s group. And that choice to be anyone but myself took a heavy toll.

I’ve always known my parents were the most theologically conservative rebels in each of their respective families, but now I understand their rebelliousness went far beyond their faith. They each chose to step outside their ethnicities, the only ones in both their families, and marry far from home in India. And now that I know more about their parents before them and the risks they each took to survive, my very presence is the unlikeliest of events. Just one step in another direction, one choice to concede, one missed opportunity and I would not be writing today. It’s taken me years to embrace the power I now realize I possess in this hybrid life I am leading.

Hybrid: the transformation of a cross-cultural people pleaser is the story of how I finally decided to accept my identity in the light of those who came before me.

We are all hybrid in some fashion. My link to the word may be more visceral but we are all composites in one way or another. Deciding to appreciate those differences and recognize the role they’ve played in shaping my character and life is what hybrid is all about.

While the stories and thoughts and dialogue I’m sharing in hybrid are based on the threads of my real life, I take full responsibility for everything I include about events and people as I recall experiencing them or as they were related to me. If you recall something differently please take this as my narrative, a creative work of non-fiction and as such I will remain creative.

Chapter One

A loud knock on the door

My grandfather looked up to see his father walk slowly to the front of their house in Adana, Turkey. Diran Melkonian had lived in this house in the Armenian part of this province his entire life along with his parents, two brothers and two sisters who all spoke Turkish and Armenian. In the mountainous district Adana had mineral wealth and along the coast-plain region farmers grew cotton, rice, grains and fruit. For decades the Melkonian family had lived in peace in Turkey, practicing their Christian faith and working in the trades without any major incident.

I’m told that my great-grandfather didn’t turn back to look one more time at anyone as he opened the door and stepped outside, closing it behind him. No one had checked to see who was on the other side of the door. Without warning he was taken away. That walk to the front door was the last memory my 12-year old grandfather, Diran, had of his father. The month was April. The year was 1909. What would come to be known as the Adana Massacre had just begun.

Because no one in my family who lived through this era is still alive, I found a New York Times article dated April 27, 1909, Days of Horror Described, where an American missionary gave an eyewitness account. The Reverend Herbert Adams Gibbons wrote,

The entire city of Adana, the capital of the province has been visited during the last five days with a terrible massacre of Armenians, the worst ever known in the history of the district. It is impossible to estimate the number killed.

In the days following my great grandfather’s disappearance, Diran and his family were told to leave their home, their lives and their country and take nothing. Their neighborhood was a blend of Armenian and Turkish families who enjoyed one another. But once they saw their lifelong friends were in grave danger, Diran’s neighbors dressed him in Turkish clothing and managed to sneak him, his mother and younger sister on a train, most likely the Baghdad Railway, which would years later be used to deport thousands of Armenians to Syria. Wearing Turkish clothing, Diran hid his sister in a basket covered with a blanket and sat on the basket for the train ride to Syria. His mother knew to cover her face