For seven years, Susanna Sukiasyan dreamed of the day she would be reunited with her children. She was so eager to see them again, she arrived at Los Angeles International Airport five hours early. When she finally spotted her children, Tigran and Armine Matevosyan, in the crowd, Sukiasyan started running.

"It was just amazing," said Sukiasyan, 43, of Ojai as she described the reunion two weeks ago. "I couldn't believe it. I kept saying, Is this you?' "

Son Tigran, now 19, and daughter Armine, 20, had not seen their mother since she immigrated to the U.S. from Armenia as a refugee in 2000. So much had changed since they parted ways: Sukiasyan had colored her dark-brown hair blond and lost weight, while the children had grown into mature, independent young adults.

"They were so big," Sukiasyan said. "I was asking them all these questions, Tell me this ... ' "

The reunion almost didn't happen. Days before her children were supposed to fly out, they were told there was a problem with their paperwork. Sukiasyan, unable to reach her lawyer and fed up with the delays, persisted, finally reaching immigration officials in Moscow and demanding, in English and in Russian, that they help her.

"I was so upset. I was shocked," Sukiasyan said. "I said, No, I am going to do this.' I'm a very stubborn person."

Finally, a woman on the other end of the line relented, telling Sukiasyan that if her children could get to Moscow the next day, she would ensure they got their paperwork so they could fly out that night. Their original airline tickets lost in the delay, Armine and Tigran needed new tickets to Moscow and then to the United States.

Sukiasyan got on the phone to an Armenian airline and purchased new tickets. The children arrived June 12, and the celebration has stretched for days, a reflection of the length of the family's separation.

"I would never come if I think it's going to take this long. It's been delay, delay, delay," Sukiasyan said. "Hope is a wonderful thing. I just kept telling my kids, Next time it's going to happen.' They were trusting, believing that it will happen."

More struggles ahead

Therese Hartmann, who met Sukiasyan at her job at The Gables in Ojai while visiting a resident there, said the children's arrival has brought a sense of relief to her friend's face. Hartmann and another friend and Ojai resident, Risa Boudreau, were among the guests for a recent Armenian feast hosted by Sukiasyan and her mother, Chinar Hakobyan, who immigrated to the United States two years ago.

"Chinar is glowing, she's so happy," Hartmann said. "Susanna, before it was always a worried expression on her face. Now there's so much relief. Still, her struggles aren't finished, because her husband isn't here."

Ashot Matevosyan remains in Armenia because he, Sukiasyan, and her immigration lawyer have been unable to secure a visa for him to travel to the United States. Sukiasyan hasn't given up hope but fears it could be years before the family is finally complete.

"My husband, he is an orphan. He is all alone," she said. "It's a shame. There's no reason for separating us."

Immigration officials rejected, for no apparent reason, Ashot Matevosyan's petition to enter the country as the husband of a person granted asylum, said Sukiasyan's attorney, Matt Bromund. Bromund is confident Ashot Matevosyan will eventually be granted entry as the husband of a legal resident, or if it takes that long, as the husband of a U.S. citizen, since Sukiasyan is working toward that goal.

"When she becomes a citizen, he's going to get to immigrate," Bromund said. "It's just a question of a how long it takes and how many immigration procedures it takes. Why cause this family three more years of pain for bureaucratic fiat?"

The children were reluctant to leave their father alone in Armenia. But Armine will turn 21 in August, which would have made it more difficult for her to join her family in the United States. At the urging of her lawyer, Sukiasyan and her husband convinced the children they needed to come now.

Now Sukiasyan will introduce her children to the country that represents, for them, a better life. She'll help them learn English, get jobs and complete their college education, just as she's been doing since she arrived in Los Angeles.

"They are just surprised how different this world is," Sukiasyan said. "Now all the doors are open for them. "

Tigran, with his mother translating, described the differences between Armenia and America "like going from grayness to color."

Armine said she likes the people because "they are all smiling at each other."

Rough road to asylum

Sukiasyan's road hasn't been an easy one here. When she came to Los Angeles, she worked as a nanny and housekeeper for several years before moving to Ojai two years ago to work as a companion for an elderly woman. That job ended, but she stayed in Ojai. She will start the nursing program at Ventura College in August and earned a $2,900 scholarship from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Orfalea Fund to help pay for it. Friend Hartmann has offered to pay for her books.

She went through five immigration attorneys before earning political asylum in 2003 and then her children's visas. Her mother immigrated two years ago and recently received her green card. Sending money back to Armenia and paying for lawyers has left Sukiasyan strapped for cash, despite working up to three jobs at a time. Things have gotten tighter now that she's working only at The Gables and supporting three other adults.

She and her mother moved from their one-bedroom cottage to a two-bedroom model a couple of doors away to have more room for Armine and Tigran, thanks to an understanding landlord who cut her a break on the rent.

The children are already trying to come up with ways they can help support their mother and grandmother. Both children must learn English, and Sukiasyan hopes in a year they'll enroll in college again, since both were university students in Armenia.

Tigran, a painter from the age of 4 who studied art in college, has already picked up a paintbrush again, though he is still recovering from an emergency appendectomy and a subsequent infection that occurred just before he left Armenia. He tells his mother he wants to sell his paintings to help support the family. Sukiasyan used a credit card to buy three canvases, paints and a portable easel to get him started painting, since he arrived with no supplies.

"My son, he can just paint, paint, paint," Sukiasyan said. "I couldn't say no because it's my son and it's his life. Painting is his oxygen."

Armine, who was studying ecology in college, has already begun talking about finding a job here, Sukiasyan said. She's also doing everything she can to help her mom, such as making and serving coffee to their guests or cleaning up so her mother doesn't have to. She tells her mother, and her grandmother: "I'll do it. You go sit."

Their mother knows the family's struggles will pay off.

"With their knowledge and intelligence, they will definitely have a different life here," Sukiasyan said of her children. "They will be good citizens of this country."