I felt fascinated by the the sight of the twin branches of this tree, creating a bush of colour while enmeshed with each other. It became a symbol of marriage as I kept watching it with some surprise and delight, as the morning sun made it even more abundant in its colour and brilliance.
I paused to reflect over the 46 years of marriage that Anna and I have shared thus far.
It began with our courtship of about fifteen months. That was a season of knowing and endearing what seemed to make us feel for each other. Our formative years were divergent in content and pattern, but the aspirations that grew within us from our journey till then brought us to find in each other similar inclinations, beliefs and attitudes and values.
There was listening and discerning in this experience. The language of the heart of all humans is seasoned with love. Love begets love. We found our selves being brought to the early stages of trust, acceptance and mutuality, where the ambience of longing for togetherness created a growing level of appreciation and affection for each other. A famous novelist who seeing two streams of water coming together, described that one plus one was not two but a larger One. That gave an insight about the the purpose and mission of marriage. The Genesis description of marriage, which is quoted at the time of a couple taking the vows at marriage, that the two shall become one, is therefore not just a vision alone but an experience to all those who long and live for it. It was during our courtship we found the common thread that could connect us and lead us into a bonding in a trusting relationship. Having been separated by long distance and the current facility of telephoning or video-meeting not in existence, we heard from each other through hand-written letters of self disclosure, giving and receiving indications of fondness for each other. It was a season of waiting, essential to develop the inward readiness needed to know each other enough to start living together after marriage.
The early years after marriage was a season of Upbuilding to become One. This is a life long experience of growing to see the interest of the other more than just one's own interest alone. There is a shift form me to we. This shift is natural, voluntary and spontaneous. Learning to do small acts of kindness to each other and waiting on each other to make every move in consensus and trust is a process and a calling.
Often the conversation times and shared experiences of reading together, playing games together, travelling together for leisure, or being silent in beholding each other were means of being drawn towards each other. A famous writer referred to the experience of sharing the table and bed as formative to this journey of intimacy. The differences in views, practices and choices do come up during this period. These are superficial discoveries, which when seen like the waves over the sea water, but sea being still beneath the waves, helped in facing this as a learning curve to live below the turbulent surface, at a deeper plane of growing in experience of belonging. It is during the first two or three years of marriage, there is greater self disclosure and story telling of each others' past, to make room for each other to experience acceptance, healing and trustful bonding.
Anna and I live in a culture now, where the common expectation of consummation of marriage is to have the first child in the first year of marriage. Many couples under the pressure to be 'fruitful' become anxious if the pregnancy gets delayed. and this has further inhibiting effect on their mood and ambience between themselves. Anna and I waited for a two years to prepare ourselves to be parents. Preparing to be stable in relationship and mutually ready to open the home and hearts for a baby is also a process, which needs attention and choice of timing.
We have had conversations with others whom we we knew well to explore the transition from being a couple to being parents. When we have had a glimpse of parenting roles and responsibilities, we developed a natural instinct and longing to be parents. This timing for a couple is important. I remember that at the end of two years Anna was looking at baby dresses and talking about babies. That to me was a signal of her readiness. I too felt drawn by many memories of my own childhood and got interested in playing with babies when visiting homes of friends who had young children.
The third phase I recall in our marriage was the season of becoming parents. It became a natural process and for the next ten years or so. That became our focus and attention. Anna took a break from her professional responsibilities to become a full time mother and devoted herself to make a home where children would find a central place in our home. The physical ambience needed to be changed. We set up a bed room for children, a play area and a study for them. The book shelves and toy cupboards occupied a central place, for children to gravitate towards them whenever they were ready to be occupied. As children had several areas in the house where they can be a t home they did not 'hang around' to be occupied by us or wait for us or cry unnecessarily to draw our attention.
For me becoming a parent meant letting go some inhibitions and demands. I grew up in an environment where 'disciplining' was the emphasis and not 'formation'. Allowing a child to grow up in an environment where he or she is free to play, engage in questions, experience accepting responsibilities and making choices through dialogue and in consultation with parents became a way forward for us. Anna was keen for us to read as much as possible on parenting and hear from others about different parenting experiences. To have had that education on the scope, content and frontiers in parenting was immensely valuable.
It was our children who made us grow up as parents. It was when they turned to us with their questions, puzzles and stories of aspirations or disappointments we as parents began to get drawn into the inside world of our children. The loss of our daughter when she was three months old enabled us to feel the depth of grief, which over the years led us to another level of growth as a family to live with hope and loss, not just with fulfillments alone.
The fourth stage in our marriage was preparing children to choose their calling in lives. It involved years of preparation in consultation with them, so that they have a purpose in sight, because of which they choose what they shall become as professionals and individuals, ready in becoming a couple. This period in our lives was largely peaceful and collaborative. When we see both our children live contend lives with their spouses and children, we do have a sense of fulfilment that our home was a place for them to have found an anchor for enlargement of their lives. Then comes a stage, when parents step back a little from the lives of their children before thy get married, for them to feel natural, normal and at home with the choices they want to make. It is important to believe and practice, that though children come through us, they are not ours, but belong to God of their lives. In that sense parents create a home to be hospitable to children and make them ready to live their lives to a calling, which they alone can behold!
The fifth stage in married life for us was finding our calling as a couple, professionally and relationally. As a couple we focused on pursuing the mission of ASHIRVAD, professionally Anna and I got involved in our academic activities actively and relationally we were blessed to have had a wide circle of friends and well wishers in different countries whom we could visit and they in turn reciprocated generously. For our children's marriages some of them graced occasion. We felt enlarged in our abilities, perspectives and thought pursuits through these widening experiences in the mid life of our lives. Some of the things that happened much to our surprise, such as being invited by CMC Vellore to start a department of developmental paediatrics and Anna invited to be the co-ordiantor of the Continuing Medical Education department at CMC Vellore. Anna became the founding editor of the journal of Current Medical Issues, published by CMC Vellore. These were unusual experiences which we did not aspire for or thought of in our wildest dreams. During this phase of twenty years or so we lived fully stretched and yet well and restfully most of the times.
This was a season of fruit bearing. Many invested or touched our lives during these years. Dr Sheela Gupta, Dr Frank Garlick, Dr Ray Windsor, Dr A.K.Tharien, Arthur Pont, Peter and Katharine Makower, Christian and Giesela, Dr Raju Abraham, Dr Jacob Cherian, Margaret Parkinson, Dr Janet Goodall, Dr William Cutting, Prof David Morley, Dr V.I.Mathen, Dr Jacob John, Dr P Zachariah, Rev A.C.Ommen, Dr Joseph and Grace Thomas, Drs Gordon and Susanna Thomas, Augustine and Valsa, L.T.Jeyachandran, Dr Vijay Aruldas, Dr Verghese Philip, Dr Sam David, Dr I sac Jebraj, Dr Suseel Tharien, Dr Oby Cherian, Dr Samuel P Oommen, ... the list is longer than this.
Our children Arpit and Anandit with their presence in our lives and Anita with her absence ministered to us in forming and expanding our inner space for others and their concerns. Now their spouses Amy and Aswathy add to the colourfulness in our lives, because they too are explorers of life for its abundance and fullness. The five grand children are joy giving all the time.
The sixth phase of our lives overlapped with the fifth stage, when we were drawn into pursuing a call to find deeper meaning in life, living and leaning through an advanced experience in spiritual formation. We were invited to be involved with a group of five couples, spread over a ten year period which provided friendships and communication to advance as a group in the experience of integrated living. We stay in touch with two couples actively even now. No marriage relationship is complete or fulfilling unless each couple creates space and attention for others. Life is a co-pilgrimage. It is from what we learn of the experiences of others in their family lives, we get a perspective of the diversities that people encounter in their pursuit of a calling. Relationship across families can develop when we keep our family boundaries porous and invite other families to share in explore common concerns.
It was also a season of offering our presence to the governing boards of Bala Nilayam, Asha Kiran Hospital, Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, Christian Medical College, Vellore, B.M.M.F (later INTESERVE), Christian Medical Association of India, Emmanuel Hospital Association, Evangelical Medical Fellowship of India, and Christian Fellowship Hospital, Oddanchatram. ASHIRVAD, the Christian Concern for Child Care which Anna and I were enabled to initiate, widened its activities through its Child Development centre at Chennai, Special school for children at St Andrew's church, Chennai and an Early Learning Centre at Nagpur. ASHIRVAD partnered with CMC Vellore to start the Developmental Paediatrics Unit which was the first department of this specialty in the country and began a post doctoral fellowship in Developmental Paediatrics and a PhD programme in the specialty.
Anna and I while looking back stay in awe and wonder at the goodness of people who invited us in to these responsibilities and gave us opportunities to express and expand ourselves. The years since 1983 to 2012 were years of experiencing the widening horizons in our lives and our calling. Most of what happened were surprises and went beyond our normal abilities or natural inclinations.
The seventh stage in our marriage is what we go through now, when life is getting whole and integrated . We lived our lives fulfilling our call to the extent we were enabled. We lived responsibly in our approach to our children and their spouses. We see in our our grand children a continuity of the heritage they bring from the lineage of two families of their parents. For us now, our lives are to be lived in a celebrating and grateful orientation. We are in stage of founding a new vocation in our retired years of life and living. When Anna and I live alone and adjust to our retired lives, it is time to bring more people into our lives. This period is a period of greater purposefulness as we feel more ready to listen, interact and learn along with others, the art of living our lives in a learning pursuit of serving and caring.
Anna and I look forward to years ahead in this journey of finding ourselves more connected with others and becoming friends, companions and confidants to at least some more people!
We begin another phase in life. We feel grateful to each other and have deeper sense of belonging to each other. We help each other in becoming more endearing to each other and ready to welcome others into our orbit of friendships.
We are aware of the goodness surrounding our lives because others have been caring and affirming. I am not sure whether we can be confident similarly about our attitudes and responses towards others. We carry a history of disappointing others, hurting some, intimidating a few and being indifferent to some along the way. We have been forgiving but could have been more forthcoming with charity and confession of our own shortcomings. We live hopeful that God of mercy would give us years of more fulfilling times by living aware of the needs of others and in excelling to respond to them. There is more to life in our relationships because God is still at work our lives! I pray that we carry within and nurture a more humble spirit and live acknowledging our vulnerabilities and blind spots.
What a life of abundant joy and fulfilment in the last 46 years!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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