asoka dissanayake |
Derrwick obituary written by his son
8:46 AM (36 minutes ago) | |||
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The Island - July 7th 2020
‘For Dr R Derrwik D. de Silva, born 13/07/37; reborn 04/07/20’
Appreciation
July 6, 2020, 9:16 pmI write this primarily for myself & also for others I hope may feel the same. I write this in advance of the inevitable & with eternal grief of prior maternal loss. For me, my father is the last parent to depart from this universal game of shared time.
I write this as the son of an original Sri Lankan blessed with unabated values, morals, ethics and selfsacrificial integrity. My father stems from generations of Titans, from a value system innate to ancient Sri Lanka & Sri Lankans, from an age of meaning underpinned by responsibility, family, love, accountability & selfless assistance, with an insoluble resolve and impregnable values unadulterated by neither greed nor money.
He had a heart filled with eternal goodness, while succeeding in capturing the very essence of humanity in his patients and anyone who crossed his path. My father was born into an era where honesty, hard work and honour were the norm and expectation. He originates from an era of tradition undiluted by foreign value systems. He and his kind are Titans of his time, Titans of Sri Lanka and legends of the future.
He was always there to protect us against all adversity. He devoted his life for us to survive and dedicated his life to the alleviation of suffering. He lived a full and happy life reaching old age however shortened by life’s diseases. As he has passed on his DNA to me, so he and I will participate in the transfer of our beings to future generations. We shall live through generations to come and in turn become our own fore fathers.
I have an unpaid gratitude to my father that I can only repay through the reciprocity of care, love, affection and sacrifice I afford my children. I owe everything I am to a man & woman who never gave up on life, on other people’s lives and on his family, independent of all adversity. Such men are rare nowadays and even rarer as fathers.
Our Sri Lankan Titans are dying out. We are a far cry from the standards of our forefathers and true Sri Lankan values. Now we live in hope for the resurrection of an unpolluted Sri Lanka, free from arrogant greed, power grabbing egocentricity & opportunistic narcissism. If I could, I would have hoped to have grown up in my country of birth, have married earlier and had children earlier so that his grandchildren and we, his children could have enjoyed more of my father for longer, tightening the gaps of distance and time over generations, now adversely affecting more and more Sri Lankan families.
I am not saddened by my fathers passing as I know he will join my mother after 23yrs and hopefully we may find him again. I find myself in him and find him in my son & daughter. Modern day Sri Lanka has sunk into tiny statues of materialism & individualism. We were once a proud gracious people. As our Titans die out, will we honour the legacy of our ancestors or will we be distracted by the irrelevance of misguided men, technology and foreign pollution?
The Dalai Lama said, "Our visit to this planet is short, so we should use our time meaningfully, which we can do by helping others wherever possible".
I look forward to my father’s rebirth, as I know he will again return to the universe as the cycle of life continues its limitless journey. His rebirth provides me with great comfort and hope for the future that once again Sri Lankan Titans may roam our country & beyond spreading joy, happiness & well-being.
Till we meet again
Dr R R de Silva
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