Prashant Solomon's tribute to his grandfathers
January 10, 2010
To all the members of our family that could not be with us today, I first want to say that you are all missed. We wish you could be here, but we understand that coming here on such short notice is difficult. For your benefit, we are going to upload the photos and videos of this event on the Internet soon. To those that could make it, I thank you.
In this month of January, in the year 1910 – (remember this was one hundred years ago before the First World War, before the Titanic sunk) – two men were born. They were named Ezekiel Henry Solomon on January 13 and Samuel Prem Dass, or "Sammy" as he was affectionately called, on January 31.
Ezekiel and Sammy became friends later on in life. They were blessed with great wives namely Nora and Helen and many lovely children. Ezekiel had 9 children, 14 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren. Sammy had 4 children, 7 grandchildren and 7 grand grandchildren so far. Unfortunately, Ezekiel never saw any of his grandchildren and Sammy also passed away on my 4th birthday, so my memories of him are not very clear, although I remember that we loved each other a lot and I am told that I use to help him up the stairs because he had some problem in his leg.
Both my grandfathers lived through a very eventful era of history. They saw two bloody World Wars and also India's freedom struggle.
Some time in the 1960s, Ezekiel's third son fell in love with Sammy's third daughter. They got married in 1971 and the next year, their bloodlines mixed together in me. They became my grandfathers and I became their grandson. 12 years later, long after they were both gone, their bloodlines mixed once again in my younger brother.
Both my grandfathers saw a lot of history. Some of it filled with the bloodshed of two World Wars. But like there is sometimes blood in history, there is also history in blood.
Every drop of our blood has a history. It is filled with the genetic information passed down over many generations written in the form of DNA. Written in the language of God. Somewhere encoded within our DNA is the signature and instincts of our forefathers. This is the information through which we are made. So we see that your ancestors are with you not just in the mind, the heart, the soul, but also they are with you in your blood through their DNA.
As the generations progress, more blood is mixed from different blood lines and this continues. It is like during the Holy Communion, when we drink the blood of Christ and eat his body, we are becoming One not only with him, but with each other. We are One in the blood of Christ and likewise we are part of One body. I Corinthians 12 talks about how each part of a body is important. We cannot say that the eye is more important than the hand or that the heart is more important than the brain. Each organ has its role. But together they form an organization, or a body. Each of us is a part of larger Body that we call a family. Each member is unique with their own talents. We are therefore not supposed to compete with each other, but complement each other. We all have our own talents. My brother's talent in music is his. My talent in writing is mine. We will never compete with each other, but complement each other's talent as something that enriches and strengthens the Body of our family.
I met a man recently who had travelled to many countries. He has seen many things including bloody wars. I asked him, what is the one thing that you have learned from all your travels and experiences. Without any hesitation, he said "Family". He said I realized that it is your family that will always be with you. It is your family that gives you strength, he said. You are forever entwined together as family, whether you want it or not, even if you do not always get along, you can never change the fact that you are family.
We get so busy today in our lives that we do not take out enough time for family. There is a story about a six-year-old boy who asked his father how much he made in an hour. The father said 20 dollars and the boy offered his father 20 dollars to come home an hour early, so he could have dinner with him at home. We are so caught up with work, money, fame, success or power that we sometimes forget in the end – who is it all for? As Robin S. Sharma asks in his book with the same title – who will cry when you die?
We are a living testimony to our ancestors and also living blueprints for our descendants. We have a responsibility to both – to our ancestors – to honour their memory, to complete their unfinished goals, to maintain their heritage, to learn from both their triumphs and tragedies, successes and failures, hopes and fears, sins and virtues.
To our descendants – we have the responsibility to live our lives in a way that they will be as proud of us 100 years later, as we are of our forebears. We have a responsibility to them also to try to leave for them a better world than what we were given.
In closing, I will narrate a small little story:
A man asked the wise philosopher: "We often say that our predecessors were wiser than we. But at the same time we criticize their comments, often rejecting them and claiming that the truth rests with us. How is this possible?"
The wise philosopher responded: "Who sees further a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of the dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant who sees further? ... So too we are dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Due to their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they."
