A month after retirement!

It was a good day yesterday to look back at the one month, since I retired from my ten years at the local Medical College. 

The first flower above represents the memories of forty years of association with Child development service, since Anna and I began with ASHIRVAD, an initiative for child development which started the Child Development Center at Chennai in 1983.

The second flower above is an expression of the ten years at MOSC Medical College, where we initiated a child development service by starting the Developmental Paediatrics department. 

The third bud represents the years ahead, we hope we would be able to look forward to in trust, hope and anticipation. 

A journey into memory lane brings up confluence of different experiences. It is from a distance we can have a panoramic view of the events and experiences of the past. Life is still unfolding even in the mid seventies. Life is larger than the sum of experiences one has gone through. 

It was while watching this Barbet a few days back I received a better overview of life of the last forty years. Anna and I have been privileged to be in a similar situation like this Barbet, surrounded by berries for a meal. Its alert took and sense of composure brought a reminder of what life has been thus far and shall be for future- Given plentifully!

We set out from the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1982 not knowing anything about child development except carrying an urge to pursue that path. What we fond, as we looked back at the many doors open for us, was exploring the different dimensions of child development: parenting, understanding the causal pathway of developmental dysfunction in children, home based developmental monitoring of preschool children, offering training for professionals in child development, publications in child development and parenting, promoting child's corner at home, collaborating with schools in making pre-school learning a pleasure, partnering with other organisations to promote child development initiatives, define the content and contours of Neuro-developmental appraisal of developmentally challenged children, enabling parents to be initiators of child development support for pre-school children, uploading videos that parents can view to receive help, receiving children and parents as the source of learning professionally.....!

None of these experiences we have been given to go through, existed in our thoughts when we started in 1983. 

Anna and I  feel touched and surprised by the experiences we have been taken through and the effect of them in our lives.  We have been exposed to a different outlook in our lives about the purpose and  calling in life! Life is an open book for others to read from! Children and parents are our resources in this learning journey. 

On the last day of the month, while writing notes to summarise the month, I faced a disturbing event. The garage we converted into the transit corner for me to have a desk there, used to be a store house along with being a car park. There were cats, rats and occasionally snakes who used to be visitors to this place, as they found good hiding places. A rat snake, non-poisonous one, came visiting yesterday and entered into the room and coiled itself under a cupboard. It took a while before it would leave. It seems to have come to its regular haunt, but felt different now, without its usual hiding place. This made us alert to secure the place even more from  giving access to invaders!

Yes, we live amidst expected and unexpected experiences. Amidst it, comes this hope and purpose about life, that it is still unfolding like the bud in the last photo in this post. 

Living is a vocation! We are given an opportunity to live gratefully, humbly and hopefully!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)