Evelyn Samarajiwa, 1924-2024

I'm trying to write this as my children squall around me, much as Achchi tried to go to the bathroom while taking care of my baby sister, who gleefully pulled all the toilet paper to the floor. Achchi physically raised us, and it's physically painful now that she's gone. I remember imagining her death as a young child and it was the saddest thing I could imagine. Now she has died and—even thirty-something years later, even after 100 years of good life—it still hurts. I thought I had pre-grieved but it doesn't work.

Me and Achchi in Vancouver, Canada, 1983 or 1984

Achchi did many things for many people but I was her grandchild and I was special. She always made me feel special and nothing can shake that belief that I was. Even as a hoary old adult, Achchi still looked at me like I was a baby. Like I was a sheer bundle of joy though I had long since unpacked into melancholy adulthood. Even as her mind was going, Achchi still looked at me like I was God's gift for just showing up. Now no one will look at me like that. That child dies with her. That person, that perception, that universe is just gone.

Achchi was ready to go—she had told me for years—but I was never ready to let her. I always told her to wait, for this great-grandchild, for that visit, for me to be home. In the selfish way of a grandchild I always asked for more and—in the selfless way of a grandmother—she always gave it. But two months after her 100th birthday, her mind slipped away and her body gave out. When I left for my wife's graduation, Achchi went into hospital and then hospice and I knew it was coming. I've known it was coming for years and felt it coming for weeks but somehow it all comes at once. Achchi always indulged me as a grandchild and I always thought that there was an exception for me. Now I know that there's not. Death comes for everyone.

Achchi had a good run, a full century, a good Christian life with a just reward, if God wills it as I pray They do. Achchi had a small house but she made it a mansion in heavenly terms. I grew up with so many people who I thought were also grandchildren but they weren't, Achchi just loved a lot of people like that and took care of them without thinking. Her home was always open, not just to us, but to anyone. One of my not-actually-cousins was with her on her last day, just as Achchi was with so many people before. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that's in me.

So much of what I am—my fundamental tender-heartedness—comes from my grandparents. The political beliefs in my family are wildly different (and seem to skip generations) but the practical motivation is the same. Politics is an adaptation to different material realities, but the spiritual chain is, I think, unbroken. I must say that I'm worse than my grandparents—I have much more but I don't do that much—but I want to be more like Achchi, I do. God knows we had less of her for years and now we have none at all.

I look at my own children, and the lessons we try to teach them. To be kind. To help people. To give. For my grandmother these were Christian values, for my grandfather these were Christian Socialist values, and they lived them in action. It doesn't actually take a lot of education to arrive at the same conclusions, you could just pay attention in preschool, or read the red parts of the Bible. Share. Care. Be nice to each other. I'm thankful that my kids got to know their great-grandparents, and that their not-so-great parents carry some of those lessons in our blood.

Early this year, Achchi was a bit agitated and kept asking about her 'service'. So her daughter-in-law (my mother) helped organize a church service for her, what I called a pre-funeral until nobody laughed and I shut up. Everyone got up and said nice things about Achchi while Achchi said “what?” But she could still read the speeches and she understood what was going on. Now all the old people want one. Achchi was happy, she literally got her flowers while she was living. She started her final decline after that. Her 100th birthday was her last milestone.

Achchi was lucky, she had a good run—a full century—and a graceful exit surrounded by people that loved her. You can't ask for much more, but as her selfish grandchild I still somehow expected it. Achchi always looked at me like her baby and here I am, still bawling at forty-one. Achchi was a teacher, she was a mother to many, she was a servant of God, but I'm mourning something else entirely. I'm mourning a grandmother, that purest of relationships, if everything works out. Evelyn Samarajiwa was the grandmother that raised me with her own hands. Now I physically feel let down. She's gone and I am alone. Or not.

Now my children are back, crawling all over me, like I crawled over my grandparents once. They look at these pictures of their Loku Achchi and smile, they don't mourn, they don't know. I can't think or write anymore which is maybe a good thing. The tree of family starts with a lot of roots and a few branches, then the roots die, the branches become roots and life goes on. It doesn't for me but I guess I'm on the dying end now.

Rest in peace Evelyn Samarajiwa, my first and last Achchi. I still love you with the heart of a child that only lived in your eyes. As your eyes close, that child is gone. I pray that my children remember you, and carry your spirit on.