A mixed experience!

 

A walk around our garden showed me the sights where ants and insects have damaged the fruits and flowers. The ants and the insects are small, but leave the fruits and flowers damaged.  The first four pictures might discourage us!

The next four pictures of flowers and fruits give another picture of a flourishing garden. In fact similar sights are far more common in the garden than the first four. Yet I confess that what stays in my mind often is the memory of  some losses of flowers and fruits!

This paused a question to me! What do I view in the panorama of my biography, when I am seventy-five years!

Let me recall five turning points in my life when I was enabled to look beyond the losses!

I was forced to go to Nagpur to study when I was just nineteen. I had not travelled beyond a few places in Kerala. I could not converse in English or Hindi. I found the experience at Nagpur difficult and stressful. After I got into Medical College, the woes did not vanish, till the third year of my studies, I was guided out of my leaning towards communism to a view life where life has a purpose, calling and direction. It was from then onwards, the study of medicine became fascinating and captivating. A chance meeting with Dr Frank Garlic, Professor of Surgery, at the Christian Medical College helped me to sense the vocation in the practice of medicine!

The second turning point was getting married to Anna. Anna was born and brought up in Maharashtra and had her training at the Christian Medical College in India. She had a transcultural view of life and experience and of knowing doctors who came from Scotland who worked with her mother in a mission hospital. Anna brought a larger view of the purpose of home, family life, upbuilding children and practicing hospitality. Anna nurtured our home, family life and vocation to be more holistic and purposeful by her presence and self giving. What we are as a couple have evolved from her perspectives to our calling.

The third turning point in life was the arrival of our daughter, Anita and her home call in three months. It disturbed and perplexed us then. But we now feel that she brought a new dimension to our lives. She during her presence with us,  pointed to us what we had not thought about or were familiar with. Anita gave us a direction to pursue a vocation in the practice of Medicine. Although her loss consumed us, the message she bough to our lives at her departure took us through a less travelled path. ASHIRVAD, the charitable trust was born out of that valley experience which in its fortieth year is still pursuing its calling to take sides of children who are developmentally challenged. 

The fourth turning point was the beginning of the academic specialty of Developmental Paediatrics in India through starting the Developmental Paediatrics Unit at the Christian Medical College, at Vellore in 1997 through a Memorandum of Understanding.  It became the first department of that specialty in a Medical College in India. ASHIRVAD incorporated its Child Developmental Centre at Chennai and all its assets to form this department, where I worked for 11 years till I retired. The first post doctoral fellowship  in Developmental Paediatrics and PhD programme started in this unit in 2006.

Th fifth turning point was the opportunity to be associated with the Bible Medical Missionary Fellowship (now INTERSERVE), Evangelical Medical Fellowship of India, Emmanuel Hospital Association, Christian Medical Association of India, Christian Medical Colleges Vellore and Ludhiana, and Asha Kiran Hospital, by being in their governing boards. I feel glad  for the widening my horizon of thinking and understanding this association provided about the larger meaning of the leavening presence in society, for those who profess to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Each of these turning points began in ways that I did not anticipate. 

Often the enlightenment and opportunity arose from experiences of disappointments. 

In the garden of life, there would be disappointments to learn from. But they are the means  for widening and deepening the vision of life!

I am getting more familiar with looking at the blessings and opportunities, life brings and not stay trapped by the disappointments. 

That is what I receive from the last four pictures in this blog- each flower and fruit reminding me of the reason to celebrate Life, Living and Learning !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)