Tyaray: A Place In Your Heart
When my dad was a young boy he went with his dad, Zaia Gewargis, toward the northern border between Iraq and Turkey. The terrain was a rugged climb and they were riding mules–more stable on their feet than horses in steep, rough places. When they reached the border, they reined their mules to a stop and gazed from their high spot into Turkey.
The last Assyrians had left Turkey two decades before as a result of the genocide attempt which brutally ended many thousands of Assyrian and Armenian lives.
My Grandpa knew the Tyaray mountains well and pointed them out to my dad. Then he pointed to a distant, snow-capped peak within that range and said “That is where Asheetha is.”
Dad was young but he understood the significance of what he was being shown. He knew that particular mountain towered above what had once been our beloved village.
My dad asked Grandpa Zaia, “Can I go closer?”
“Go!” Was my Grandpa’s reply.
Dad jumped off his mule and ran with joy down the mountain-side into Turkey and toward the far-off Tyaray mountains.
But the sheer distance became clear as he got further from Grandpa and Tyaray was not looking any closer. Finally he stopped, took one last look at the distant range, and then turned to climb back up-the-mountain to Iraq. It was the closest he ever got to the beloved Tyaray.
Once in a dream…I saw the mountains of Tyaray! How can you love a place where you have never been before?
The question has followed me for years and now I think I finally understand.
When I was a small child living in the US, my dad would tell me about my Grandpa Zaia and the rest of my family living in Iraq. I never questioned their existence but it made me feel a lonely emptiness for my missing family.
Years passed and finally the happy day came when my Grandpa and Grandma (along with my Uncle Nimrod and his wife) arrived in the US. Grandpa always greeted me with two strong, wet kisses…one on each cheek! Candy was a certainty every time I saw him along anything else that he thought I wanted.
One day I boldly asked him to sing me a song. He looked at me for several moments with a piercing stare and I wondered if I had made a mistake in asking. But he was actually taking my request very seriously. Suddenly with a strong, rich voice he sang-out about Tyaray…
“O Eagle of Ratkhumay, King of the birds, fan your wings, fly to Tyaray” (Rough English Translation)
When he stopped singing he gave me a pleased look that seemed to say “There, you have it!”
I admired that way he sang and was happy when I learned to sing the same song. His song became my song and his love of Tyaray became my dad’s love, and now it’s mine.
Tyaray…a place in Turkey where we can never return and live happily ever after. But it is still a beautiful place in our hearts.
My Dad and Grandpa knew Tyaray. My Grandpa knew the range personally and my dad knew it from a distant vantage point. But I believe in Tyaray through their songs and stories.
But there is another place even more important to the three of us. It’s called Heaven…a place where love will be the only rule. When we reach Heaven and the restored earth we will find that God, in His great love, has truly made “all things new” (Revelation 21: 5).
Perhaps that means that the Tyaray mountains will again be standing in their bold strength, and Assyrians will then enjoy eternal life in peaceful villages among them!
But I, for one, am sure that Heaven and Tyaray are both real places, and anyone who is serious about gaining either of them must “purify himself, even as He (God) is pure” 1 John 3: 3.
Waiting all those years for my unseen family in Iraq, did not change their reality, and for all of us, the reality of the greatest reunion in history is just ahead! Are you ready?
