June every year is special month for me. It is a month when I look back and look forward to as it is the time to prepare to welcome another year in my life!
The picture of the mina above speaks all of what I want to summarise about the one year that is about to be behind me. The bird rests on the edge of a post at the fence of a compound wall receiving the rising sun on its back while offering its bird call!
I began June 2018 with a desire to write personal letters of gratitude to about 90 friends whom I had known over the years since I began my medical studies in 1967. I completed writing to half of them and look forward to finishing the rest before the year end all being well. They turned out to be letters of gratitude, appreciation, recollection of events, and offering words of encouragement and affirmation.
One natural experience most senior citizens faces is a feeling of living at the edge far away from the main stream. The younger people occupy the centre space and and the older people naturally get displaced to the periphery. The younger people rightfully belong the centre spot as they are the future for any organisation. Also, in honouring them to be in places of responsibilities we promote transition in leadership. This can grow in to an experience of self-pity for some senior citizens. I have had my share of this now and then.
Having been made aware of this prospects, I was helped by Anna and some friends to learn to live at the edge purposefully and by choice!
The interactions at the work place, the opportunities to be professionally involved beyond the work place, developing a life centred view of work and calling and finding a measured balance between work and rest, provided the mooring to stay at the edge expectantly and peacefully!
I felt a renewed interest to be a listener, and in so doing, I felt relieved of having to be provider of direction for others except by offering my attention to be a steadfast companion!
I did make progress in composing the biography of my life in thirty or so chapters. That composition helped me to recollect the major events out of which the formative process in my life had evolved.
People, events and experiences are the three crucial landmarks in one's biography.
The mina in the first photo after a while turned around at the edge and changed its direction to the opposite side. It stopped its bird call. After awhile it flew away. That too was a message of hope and trust.
Life is given to live at the edge when the time has come for that and live it fully and vicariously till the time when each person's time has come to fly away to the eternal destiny!
So all of us live in this in-between time of the life now and the life beyond!
The in-between time is therefore a sacred and opportune time to unfold the mission of life in all its fullness.
Looking back over the chronological year in my life that is just about to be over, I have a sense of fulfilment about the effects of my presence at my work space. The joining of another consultant and the rest of the team becoming more stable after six years of efforts to consolidate the mission of the department, has brought delight and comfort. Anna and I have been able to find our rhythm of living and relating at this new phase of our lives. The children and grandchildren occupy our attention and this is another delightful part of the extended family experiences. The role of ASHIRVAD, of which we are founder trustees has progressively decreased as the mission to respond to the needs of developmentally challenged has been adequately expressed at Chennai, Nagpur, CMC Vellore and now at MOSC Medical College Kolenchery.
The involvements with the EMFI, Asha Kiran Hospital, CMAI, EHA CMC Vellore and Ludhiana, etc. decreased progressively, which in one sense provided respite from the challenges of organisational planning and governance related ups and downs.
To summarise the journey of life with some written text for professionals and pilgrims on the journey of life is the call with which I live now.
There are times when I felt that I ought to be in touch with friends proactively, visit them and offer support and care! Yes, there is some regretful feeling about it for having not ben not ale to do it. Some broken relationships on account of the difficult time in the governing board of CMC are yet to be reconciled. I was reminded of the intensity of this stress, when some friends avoided greeting me while attending a chapel service in the hospital chapel recently. I intend to reach out with letters of conciliatory initiative.
So I close the journey of a year in my life with some joyful recollections and some pending responsibilities towards some people to whom I owe an expression of gratitude or regret.
In the mean time, I noticed a mina in the adjoining field ( I am not sure if it was the earlier one) seeking for its breakfast feed. By then the sun was shining warmly and there were birds in the vicinity with the birdcalls.
So that became the pointer to the year ahead- to live ordinarily and responsibly fulfilling the stewardship of time and accountability committed to me! The daily living experiences can become truly bountiful when I can live in the consciousness of how much I have been given and provided for! So that lifts away the burden of the cares of daily living. God being the provider and Anna being the companion, the year ahead is full of promises and prospects.
So I wait, inwardly ready to usher in another year in my life!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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