One year ago to the day I traveled with my family to Sri Lanka. It was a sudden decision and, in retrospect, one of the best I've made in my life.
My father turned 86 that day. He was clearly delighted to see all of us. Although he was not in the best of health and his memory was not what it used to be, he recognised us all. I will never forget the way he grabbed my wife's hand and kissed it. It was a spontaneous gesture of absolute affection for someone he considered as his own daughter. I doubt if any of us will ever forget it, all the more because that was the last time he recognised any of us.
Today my hero turns 87. He is surrounded by love and loved ones. It breaks me, however, that I am uncertain whether or not he is aware of his surroundings and the presence of those he showered with love and caring all their lives. And yet, I take comfort in the fact that he has lived a good life, a life of determination and accomplishment, in which he conducted himself with absolute integrity.
A committed and loyal husband second to none, my father was also an exemplary parent. He never lectured me or my brothers. He was anyway a quiet man who said little and did much. He simply lived and in living taught us what was important in life, what was trivial and what was not worth bothering about. Deeply religious though he is, my father seemed to believe that godliness is about conducting himself in accordance with the truths he believed in.
I am not at his side today, but he's by my side. I reflect often on how he lived his life, especially when I reach critical crossroads. I invariably draw from the examples he's set, not even realizing it at first. I could say 'Thank you, Thaththa,' but he won't hear it. I fervently hope, though, that throughout his more lucid years, he had no occasion to wonder if I was ever grateful. There are debts we can never repay, but then what he did was never transactional. It was all love. ‘All. Love’
May God bless and protect my hero, now and always.
Krishantha Prasad Cooray
