“This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.”

Mitch Albom.

In 2011 or 2012, I got the opportunity as a mature adult to talk to daddy about the events around the time of my parents' loss of their first child. This event had happened about a year before my birth. So I only knew sketchy details of the story from my mother over the years, who was still wallowing in that grief many years after the loss of her first baby.

Daddy and I were sitting down in the veranda of daddy's home when I asked him to tell me more about the loss of their baby. Daddy calmly described the way he was informed that the baby was born but was ill, being asked to rush to the hospital leaving his parish church duties, arriving there to find out that the baby had in fact died, and then to be part of the events which followed- the burial of the baby in mom's parental home parish church in Neeleshwaram. Daddy was present through out the services which followed. Daddy was very calm as he described these events. 
I then asked daddy a question, the answer to which changed the way I looked at my life from that day. I asked my father whether he was disappointed or dejected in life, having lost a baby boy, to be then given two daughters. Daddy looked into my eyes and said ''Child, you are the result of many people's prayers over many years. Such a life is priceless.''

There are certain pivotal moments in all of our lives. Moments which re-shape us... This was one such moment in my life. I thank my father for his powerful words. 

Two pictures with daddy taken 5 years apart. Daddy saw Iona & Ezra in 2022.

The year was 2015, and daddy's memory was clearly deteriorating. It was evident to him and to us that he was struggling to fulfil common tasks of a priest, like praying or preaching in public. 
I had ben visiting the Deepti Special School in Manakkala regularly to offer paediatric review for some of the children there whenever I visited my parents in Kerala. During one such visit, daddy & mom came to pick me up from Deepti School at the end of the day. We met at the home of Mathew Sir and Dr Susan, who were the workers behind this beautiful organisation. They are a Christian family, and they welcomed us with joy. Daddy prayed as we were concluding our visit there. Mathew sir, Dr Susan, two of their young sons, mom and I bowed our heads as daddy started to pray that evening. 

Daddy is a priest who normally submits to God all of his & our needs in his prayers. Since the onset of dementia in 2015, daddy had been struggling to construct the sentences and put together the paragraphs in his prayers and sermons. On this particular occasion, daddy's prayer seemed very fluent in the beginning.... until he started sounding confused. After the usual start and part of the prayer, daddy repeatedly prayed for 'all who are leading a family life now, and all who will begin a family life in the future'. This part of his prayer was repeated 4-5 times that it registered in the minds of all of us who listened to the prayer on that day. 

At the time, at the age of 38, I had very little hope of finding the right partner in time to start a family life. In the subsequent years, as I entered into a Christian marriage with my husband Emmanue, and as we welcomed our children into our lives, I have often thought of daddy's prayer that evening in 2014.

There stood a man of God through whom God spoke. 

An ordinary moment with my children.

In the early 80s, daddy sat down with both of his daughters in the veranda of our first floor flat in Kochi. He was very intently engaged in filling up some papers which needed to be posted off later that day. He was sending requests for 'name slip stickers' for his 2 daughters, with pictures of characters from a cartoon book. Daddy was paying a brief weekly visit to us, and as usual he had brought with him 'Balarama' and 'Poombatta'- two of our favourite children's monthlies. He saw the advertisement to send self addressed envelopes in order to receive free name slip stickers, and hence he sat down with us to execute this. With us, daddy also became another enthusiastic child. Sure enough, the self addressed envelopes were returned to us with the sticker name slips a few weeks later. Daddy also mediated the subsequent squabble precipitated by my wanting all of the name slips for myself.

On another occasion, daddy offered to make a 'suitable attire' for my small doll. At 8 years, this sounded very exciting to me. Daddy went inside the house, grabbed a few equipments and returned to the veranda. He put the cardboard tea box of 'Kannan Devan Tea' on the table, and carefully cut a whole on the centre of the top of the box. Daddy then took my doll from my hands, and prompfly lowered the doll into the tea box, leaving only its head exposed. That was daddy's idea of a 'suitable dress/ cover' for my doll. I looked at him with a confused and annoyed expression, only to receive a mischievous smile from him. I was expecting a nice frilly dress for me doll: not what I saw there in front of me. I was hugely disappointed.

Despite the lack of any artistic ability, daddy did not hesitate to take part in our art work and to give us advice. He enjoyed being present with the children especially during our early years. 

I learnt from daddy's life that being called into family life is also one of God's callings. Some of the ordinary life moments were made extra-ordinary by the way daddy responded to our childhood requests with seriousness and much enthusiasm. He valued the limited time he spent with us, playing with us, teaching us and reading with us. 

As I make room in my life schedule to make time for my children, I often recall the way my father played the most ordinary parenting role for his young children.