Memoirs of a family reunion - A tribute to our parents

Our most beloved Papa and Mummy, their children and their spouses, who became children of this family, and their grand children, my loving greetings!

We have gathered today to celebrate the meaning of the word 'Family'. Family is a gift and ancestry is a fortune that we have inherited from our parents and grandparents. 

The path which Papa and Mummy chose is unusual and unique. Choosing two paths which are different from each other, never relenting from it, never being afraid of anyone or anything, ignoring the failures and impediments that you encounter, doing what you think is right, with responsibility, without expecting anything in return, are the fundamental values of your life history.  Today’s gathering proves how much it has influenced your two generations.

Assessing love and success cannot be done by keeping them on the two pans of a balance. As gold is separated from its ore undergoing purification processes through water and fire at the goldsmith's crucible, when its colour changes to black, or when its shape becomes unattractive, when changes happen making everyone doubt it, your unrelenting, untiring, trust in your conscience and conviction, makes you move ahead. On the way, God has changed mere mud into pure gold and we have only His Grace to be proud of.

When many people advice, judge, comment, and criticize you, apart from feeling sad and angry for a while, you continue your journey by holding firm to your conviction. Though we cannot imitate you, all of us do acknowledge it completely. You are the revolutionists, who, instead of being a halogen light at home preferred to be a light on the wayside post, insisted that home is not a place where four people stay under one roof and our life is not to be confined to the four walls of the house, emphasised that even after marriage and after having children, we must do our duty and all the good we can towards our parents, siblings, relatives, friends, the poor, to the best of our ability, underlined the fact that education and job are the only tools that can make a man or a woman stand independent on one's own feet and convinced and supported the older generation to educate the girls and boys without differentiation.

As you both are the first-born in your families, you considered your siblings as your own children and even if they fail to remember it now, neither my brother nor I can ever forget it. Besides your parents, you took care of the parents of your son-in-law and daughter-in-law and called them 'Papa' and 'Amma' and you extended your help through your presence and prayers till their death, which we count it as world's greatest wonder. 

Though you could always shine like the blazing sun, you chose to be a burning candle, unnoticed by humans. Instead of a bungalow and a big car, your choice of living in an ordinary house open to everyone, and owning nothing but a Hero bicycle, may seem too weird to many, but to all of us, your children, their spouses and your grandchildren, your way of life has turned out to be an exemplary one, which all of us are inspired to follow. It is your simple way of life which we consider as the biggest gift that we have received from you.

You started your life with nothing when you had the chance to make everything. Though you lived without making anything and preferred to give to the needy, what you possess at the end are not just a few coins, but a few crores.  As you have kept even that to gift to your children and grand children, we don't find anything more precious to give you in return. But we will keep, for our grandchildren to see, the house and land near the stream, the trees that their great grandfather planted, the ornaments that their great grandmother made.  A lot of inspiring stories about you will be treasured, for them to enjoy. Today, what we and our spouses and our children can gift you is, a promise that we will strive to sustain love and will try to follow your path and never will lose our love and life, fighting over wealth or gold.

It is better to love when we all are alive than to cry after anyone’s death. It is better to forgive and be united than falling apart and feeling guilty. The question is not how many times we have fought each other, but how many times we have forgiven each other. By God's Grace we could, we still can and we will always be able to, and that is the biggest blessing that God has given us.

We lived 25 years together because you lived 50 years together. You proved that anyone can be forgiven and be loved. In our problems, instead of pouring oil and destroy whatever remained, you poured water to save us from being destroyed by fire. The patience and calm that you showed in crises surely was the strength that held us together.

Papa who is a lover of fruit trees and vegetables, and Mummy who loves flowering plants and ornamental trees  and two children who love all kinds of plants and trees. What a combo! We have inherited your extreme calmness and extreme anger and we are fortunate to have Xavy and Jaya, the two living and loving saints, who could bear us and hats off to both of them.

Our four children, who grew up in the midst of our scolding and punishments, love us a lot and look up to their Appacha and Ammachi as their hero and heroine. We pray that God will grant all the four of you the spirit of brotherhood and unity.

The sun rises every day, the moon and stars brighten the sky every night. A human life remains as an up-and-down journey from one’s birth to death. God has appointed some chosen ones to hold the ladder and help the people to climb up and to console those who fall down. They neither go up, nor come down. God's blessings protect them. My brother and I are fortunate to be born to such people of God and to have such people as our spouses. I pray to God that our children and all our generations to come must be blessed with the same fortune.

As the Bible says, even if a person has everything, but love, he is nothing. But for us, even if we don't possess anything but love, we have everything. May God help us to be united in love, to fulfil His will, to live experiencing His power! We don’t know who will inherit Heaven or Hell. But our Lord Jesus who told us that ‘The kingdom of Heaven is among you’ and that I am present wherever two or three are gathered in my name’. So we are sure that He is surely present here in our midst.  

Understanding the truth that God is love and love is the only way to Heaven, may we live, sharing the love of God. May God’s love enable us and bless us to tread the path of love together in God’s presence and leave for all our generations to come, an exemplary path which we trod with God.