Ayiah’s
Farewell
Stephen and Christine
Pathmarajah,
10 Applecross Close,
Gorse Covert
Warrington
WA3 6UX
England
We
are pleased to announce the departure of Mr Arumugam Thambirajah (picture) who was suffering from vascular dementia for
the last 10 years. During the last 5
years he required constant help with daily living activities such as feeding
and drinking. During that time there
were instants when he was able to realise his condition and he prayed for his
departure.
Based
on his wishes and his prayers we are pleased to announce that his prayers have
been answered and he departed from us on 24th March 2009 at 18:30 hr
at our home peacefully with Christine, Robert and his friend Jay at his bed
side.
His
wish was that his body be donated to the University of Manchester for research
purposes and he gave us instructions not to make his departure a big and sad
affair as he felt he had a good and successful life and wished us to celebrate
his life rather than make a fuss of his death.
We contacted the university and they are unable to accommodate his
wishes and as such we have to organise a funeral service at the local
crematorium.
On
that basis and on his request we are planning to have a quite and very simple
ceremony at the local crematorium at on Wednesday 1st April 2009 at
13:30hr and the service is to be taken by his granddaughter Jenny who spent
some time with him during his last days.
I am sure you will all have your private memories of him. I would like to share mine with you and that
is:
When Ayiah was working in the middle of the jungle as a
surveyor apparently one day a local villager came to him crying and told him
that his daughter went to the local school and one day when one of the teacher
got a transfer and left the school he took his daughter with him and his
daughter is no where to be found. Ayiah
took this to his heart and used his civil skills and name wrote to the
education department and go the school that teacher was teaching and reported
the missing child to the police. A few
weeks alter the police brought the girl to her home and to her father. Seeing his daughter the father came to see
Ayiah and told him you do not have to do any more good deeds I have prayed to
God to give you blessing rest of your life.
For me this is a heart worming story and this is what I like to remember
Ayiah for.
Please
do not send any flowers; he requested his children not to fly half way across
the world or his friends to drive across the UK to attend his funeral. His wishes were that any such money be given
to the charity of their choice. If you
have no particular choice of a charity then you may send your donations to the
charity we have started in remembrance of our Jasmine, and the details of the
account is Sort Code 20-91-48 and the Account Number is 60880523 or send a
cheque made out to ‘Dr Jasmine Anandarajah Memorial Fund’ to the address in
this letter.
For
us it has been a very valuable experience, which we would not have missed for
the world. Above all it was an
experience for us to learn how we are likely to be when we reach that age and
we wanted to make sure in this modern world if we are willing we could extend
the care for the elderly. In general we
are very pleased that our family, relatives, friends and colleagues who looked
after their parents shared their experiences with us and on that basis we felt
we did not have to make the same mistakes again.
On
this note we say thank you for visiting mum and dad when they were alive and
sharing your experience with us.
Christine
and Steve Back to Home Page
