Growing strong and deep roots

These days I've been going through the correspondence of Br Gabriel Fernandez who passed away a year ago (July 22, 2008 to be precise) for some material to be included in his mortuary letter being prepared by Fr Maliekal and Fr TV Jose. Most of his own writings (in the scattered diaries) is about his 'low-moments'. I guess he was busy celebrating the 'highs' to pen any of his thoughts and points of view. I also wonder, if he had anything to fall back to, especially in moments when he was down and out. I am sure such moments would have been in plenty given his delicate health in the last years of his life. Did he really have something to hold on to? I have my doubts...

I hope I have something more deep and profound to hold on to when I reach that stage of life (if at all I live that long). This blog of mine sure does have fragments I can collect and thoughts I can weave together, time permitting to look at myself and my life. More than this text, I think what is within me will sustain me, especially in my dark nights - or darkened nights!! So make hay while the sun shines.

Funeral of Br Gabriel

Funerals are never easy, neither for the one for whom they are conducted nor for the participants. Am just back from the funeral of Br Gabriel! Sentiments of sorrow and pain keep welling up every time I see someone crying over the body. Even when I touched him for the last time before lifting him for the procession towards the cemetery, I could not control myself. It is not that I loved Br Gabriel very much or that he was very dear to me... no! Yet, I believe it is hard to accept the fact that one with whom you have lived for some time of your life is no more. Perhaps the loss is felt all the more when, I know that a part of me - something that I have picked up from him, something inspired by him, some moment made unforgettable because of him, some way he has become part of me - is no more going to be with me, in flesh and blood. I wonder if I will ever remember and shed tears later for Br Gabriel? I haven't done it for Fr Varricatt who passed away six years ago. May be good to spend a few moments with this feeling of loss, now than never! After all, he is my confrere, my family, part of me!

Having penned a few lines about Br Gaby - by way of news for the web - I feel nice to be able to do this bit for or on behalf of him for those who might have been really touched by him - much more than I have been.

Thank you dear Brother!

Br Gabriel and Don Bosco...

Br Gabriel Fernandez sdb ... no more!! Well that brings to close another life in the Salesian Congregation but this time of someone much closer home and someone with whom I shared two years of life while at Karunapuram. That Br Gabriel had given upon life was evident to those who met him, especially in the last couple of years. But that he survived so long in spite of all that turmoil and emptiness only shows what strength and vigour he had in his younger days. What I liked in him was his attachment to Don Bosco. Whatever one may say regarding his habits or behaviour, he never missed an occasion to speak of Don Bosco. No goodnight talk of his ended without reference to Don Bosco and Mother Mary. Having grown up in that earlier Salesian tradition where Don Bosco and Mother Mary were anywhere and everywhere, his reference to them does not come as a surprise. (That is something lacking in today's Salesians - we think twice before speaking about them! At times we feel proud to have spoken about a very grand idea but nothing in it about God or Don Bosco!) Anyway, now Br Gabriel will not have any more problems!