A Belated Gift for My Father

A Belated Gift for My Father

Nichan Marc Kechayan ~ 1913-1994

(photo age 12, 1925)

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A Belated Gift for My Father

Two Young Waiters

I seated myself alongside my business acquaintances and ordered breakfast. Whenever I
travel, breakfast is my favourite meal. Two young waiters, with huge smiles on their
faces, cheerfully served us. My friends and I discussed our impressions of the product
showcase we had all attended the evening before, as captive guests of the world's #1
Korean electronics company.
We had been flown in from across North America to an upscale resort in sunny Florida
for a week of meetings and golf. I hate golf. Most corporations had finally recognized
that a select few of their customers might not be avid golfers - hence, many had started
to schedule alternate activities. I was looking forward to driving and drifting a high
powered race car on a Nascar track and had signed up for a hiking expedition later in
the week. In between, the resort's elaborate spa would do just fine.
Evening diners were highly organized affairs, but breakfasts and lunches were left to
our discretion. The sun baked patio restaurant, under an umbrella, overlooking the first
tee was my choice. By the third day, the two young waiters had learned my routine and
were more than happy to accommodate my wishes with happy nods and mild conversation.
I was sitting in my lounge chair, my face turned to the sun, sipping a fine cocktail. My
mind was racing, recalling the days events. Sitting in a Nascar Mustang drifting
through curves had been more exhilarating than I had expected. "Can I get you
another?" The question woke me up. "Sure", I replied, but please ask the bartender to
put in a bit more grenadine.
It was one of the two waiters who had been serving me all week. Both young men had
been overly anxious to please me as best they could. It seems I've been a good tipper.
The remainder of the week was filled with "Can I get you a newspaper? Would you
like some steak spice? Another glass of sparkling water? It started to feel like I had two
valets at my disposal!
My plane ride back home to Montreal from Florida was scheduled for the next day. Two
days earlier, over lunch, I had asked my waiters a question. "Judging from your accents,
I can tell you're not Americans." Having grown up in multicultural Canada, yet born in
France to Armenian parents; heritage has always been of interest to me. These two
young men were olive skinned, not unlike myself.
"We're both Turkish" was the response. "We attend Hotel courses in Turkey; we've been
assigned by our school to this U.S. resort for training." "You both are doing great", was
my reply. "Could you arrange for my rental car to be driven up to the front door, also,
would you have my laptop returned to my room? I over-tipped them both. The next
two days were filled with these young men running errands and doing me favours.

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A Belated Gift for My Father

- On My Fathers Knee
I am Armenian!
That fact had been drilled into my mind from an early age by my father. "Be proud of
your heritage! We are an old and proud people! We were the worlds first Christian Nation! Armenian is one of the oldest living languages in the world - if not THE oldest!
Our alphabet is unique and most importantly - We want our land back - that biblical
mountain Ararat is OURS!
As a child, my weekends were spent on my father's knee, hearing stories of Armenian
heroes from long ago, and being made aware of famous contemporary Armenians. This
singer is Armenian! That movie actor is Armenian - so are these famous movie directors
and those sports stars! When I got older, there was one other very important lesson, instilled by my father - probably the most important.
My father taught me to hate!
I learned that Ottoman Turkey had massacred over one and a half million Armenian
Christians early in the 20th Century. I heard about the atrocities the Muslim Turks perpetrated - the confiscation of property, forced marches, drownings, burning of churches
filled with women and children - how they killed and why. Armenians were easy to
hate, we were Christian, educated, affluent and successful. He explained that the Allied
powers, who were embroiled in the Great War against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, had other priorities. It was convenient for them to ignore this ethnic cleansing. A so-called secular-country Turkey was
a promising post-war ally amidst a Communist and Muslim dominated part of the
world.
I learned how my 20 year-old grandmother, had been force-marched hundreds of miles
through the Derzor desert from her home in Kharpet, with my infant father cradled in
her arms. How my grandmother had put my father in an American orphanage in Aleppo Syria, while she worked digging streets. Money needed to pay to support him and to
raise enough funds to communicate with her brothers in America.
I suppose that's one reason my father always had distain for the world powers of that time, yet
loved Americans. Just like the Turks, he also hated Germans. His first-hand experiences during
the Jewish Holocaust, specifically in German-occupied France - just 30 years later - during
World War II- mimicked the Turkish Genocide of Armenians in 1915. (Adolf Hitler in 1939
stated Who, after all, today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?)

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A Belated Gift for My Father

Most of all, my father craved revenge. I was taught about the Armenian Heroes of
Project-Nemesis, a group of genocide survivors who had in the 1920s assassinated the 3
Turkish Pasha leaders responsible for coordinating the Genocide. I still see my fathers
eyes sparkle as he recounted their patriotic deeds.
A few years later in 1925, after an aborted attempt to join her brothers in the U.S., my
grandmother and her young son sailed from Syria to Marseilles, France. The person to
whom my grandmother had entrusted her savings, in order to arrange passage to the
USA, to rejoin her brothers, had booked her and her ten year old son on a slow boat to
Cuba. "Cuba is close to America" had been his defence. Luckily, a boatful of Armenian
refugees was sailing to France the following week. Her friends suggested she should do
the same. I heard how my father sold newspapers on the streets of Marseilles, teaching
himself to read and write French, learned a trade, married, lived through World War II
and had two sons. We immigrated to Canada in 1956.
I have never met my grandfather; all I know of him is what my father told me while I
was growing up. My grandfather had been a baker from a well to do family. So it was
that when many young men pulled up stakes prior to 1915 and fled to America to avoid
the growing Turkish atrocities, he, along with his young family decided to remain. My
grandmother's three older brothers had already made that trip, leaving her behind. Her
husband would take good care of her and their new son (my father).
My 25 year-old grandfather was walking home from work, taking his favourite shortcut from the flour-mill. Turkish horsemen brandishing swords and rifles stopped him
and led him to a clearing in the fields. His hands tied behind his back, he knelt alongside six other Armenians who had also been abducted. Later that evening, while the
Turks ate and drank, the fellow to the left of my grandfather managed to untie his own
hands. He then untied the hands of the other man beside him. Turning to my Grandfather, he suggested he do the same for him. He felt they stood a good chance of making a
successful get-away, since they were the last three of the seven kneeling, therefore the
furthest away from the Turks and their campfire.
My grandfather declined, telling him They're just trying to scare us - itll be worse if
we run - theyll let us go in the morning."
How do I know what transpired that night? My father spent years trying to find the
gentleman to the left of his father that day - finally tracking the elderly man down and
flying to California to meet him.

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A Belated Gift for My Father

I am a Descendant of a Survivor of the Armenian Genocide

I had never come face to face with a Turk before. Surprisingly, given the fact that I had,
all my life, channeled my fathers hatred of all things Turkish, I had never given any
thought as to how I might react in such a circumstance. However, when I found out that
these two young men were Turkish, I immediately accelerated my requests which now
were more like orders Can you fetch me this? Can you get me that? They eagerly
obliged - I treated them as my personal hand servants.
I must confess, I took great satisfaction bossing them around.
Then, on the day before I was leaving, I politely asked them both to join me for a drink
after their shift. I sat them down and explained. Do you know what my heritage is? I'm
Armenian. Did they teach you in school about the Genocide of Armenians by the Turkish Government? "No", was their response. Of course not, Turkey still denies that it
even took place. Then I told them, "I'm not usually such a difficult and demanding customer", I acted that way only because I knew that you were Turkish.
When you go back home, make sure you tell your parents that their murderous Ottoman grandparents didn't accomplish what they attempted to do. They didn't exterminate us! Tell them what took place here these past few days. How a descendant of a
survivor of the Armenian Genocide bossed you around and treated you like his personal hand servants. I related the story about my father's hatred of Turks, and the reasons for that hatred. Their mouths dropped open.
I told them I did this as a gift for my father.
The revenge he craved but never achieved. All those years of deep hatred towards all
Turks, for the hardships he and his mother had endured because of their actions. Having such bitter hatred for the Turks that he felt compelled to pass it down to his own
son.
Flying home the next day I reflected on what had just taken place here in North America in the 21st Century. I also thought back to that morning in 1915, when that sharp
Turkish blade came down across the back of my Grandfather's neck - that instant when
he realized he wasnt going to be released. Could he have ever imagined in that immediate moment that the baby he would never see again would one day have a son of his
own? Better still, that his own grandchild, just two generations later, would be sitting in
USA having two Turks at his beck and call?
Revenge does not have to take the form of an eye for an eye

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A Belated Gift for My Father

- Its Our Mountain

After all the years that have gone by, revenge would not be as sweet for todays Armenians as it was for those, like my father, who were personally touched by those horrific
events. That being said, in this year of commemoration, the world-wide Armenian
community needs to feel acknowledged. We need to know that the world accepts as fact
that atrocities were committed against our ancestors one hundred years ago. Canada,
France, Italy, Greece and 18 other countries have enacted resolutions in support of the
Armenian community and/or enacted laws criminalizing the denial of the Armenian
Genocide.
The Canadian Government has issued formal apologies to Japanese Canadians who
were interned during World War II as well as to our own Indigenous Peoples who were
forced into boarding schools where they were abused. Post-war Germany took responsibility for the Holocaust. In the same way that Canada and other nations have tried to
redress wrong-doings committed in the past, this is the year that Turkey needs to stand
up and be counted.
Turkey can no longer claim, as they have for 100 years, that there was no will to purposefully exterminate the Armenian population; they can no longer pretend that the
1915 massacres were the consequences of Tehcir Law and World War I. Whitewashing
the truth is no longer an option. Turkey must formally recognize that Genocide took
place, they must condemn the actions of their forbearers, and they must apologize.
As a final gesture of acknowledgement, Turkey must return Mount Ararat to Armenia.
We all know that Noahs landing on Mount Ararat is a strong symbol for Christians and
Jews alike but for Armenians the symbolism pre-dates even biblical times. It was the
home of the Armenian mythological Gods in much the same way that Mount Olympus was the center of Greek mythology. In the modern era, Mount Ararat has been
revered by Armenians as symbolizing their national identity and is even on the countrys coat of arms. Although currently located in Turkey a short 20 miles away, the
mountain teasingly dominates the skyline of Yerevan, Armenias capital. A constant visible reminder to its tragic past.
It is only with these steps completed that Genocide survivors, like my father, who knew
a lifetime of suffering because of this systematic extermination - will truly rest in peace.
Much has been written about Holocaust survivors and even the children of Holocaust
survivors. We now know that the psychological trauma experienced by the survivors
transcends several generations.
Like the families of Jewish Holocaust victims, we Armenians need to recognize and acknowledge the psychological imprint left on our psyches by this tragic event. We the
children and grandchildren have also suffered. Many of us continue to suffer as adults.

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A Belated Gift for My Father

But I believe, now that weve reached the 100 year mark, the time has come to celebrate
the resilience of the human spirit. No - we will never, never, forget the atrocities committed. But we must, now, finally be permitted to stop grieving, if we are to find it in
our hearts to finally forgive and to be at peace.
Turkey! You know you did it
Acknowledge this historical fact Accept responsibility
Apologize, and, in restitution Give us back our mountain!
This would be the best gift of all.

Richard Marc Kechayan - Montreal, Canada

(Armenian Genocide Centennial - April 24th, 1915-2015)

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