“Thatha, we will remember you”

I re­ceived a call a few weeks ago in­form­ing me of the pass­ing away of Rev­er­end Al­bert Ed­ir­i­singhe, who I’ve  af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as “Tha­tha”a man of hon­es­ty, in­teg­ri­ty, and a giv­ing heart.  My story of friend­ship goes back over the years to 1974.  I was  a 3rd year pre-law col­lege stu­dent in the Uni­ted States at­tend­ing Hamp­ton Uni­ver­si­ty,  when I heard I had been  se­lec­ted as an ex­change stu­dent with “The Ex­peri­ment in In­ter­na­tion­al Liv­ing” to vis­it the is­land coun­try of Sri Lan­ka.  I was thril­led to be one of five stu­dents se­lec­ted for this hon­our.



"I’m go­ing to miss Tha­tha, his fine con­ver­sa­tion, his love of Sri Lan­kan cul­ture..and his pas­sion for do­ing the right thing.  But he will not be far away, cause he will be look­ing over us al­ways"



Our trip be­gan in Wash­ing­ton, DC with a din­ner at the res­i­dence of the Sri Lan­kan Am­bas­sa­dor.  From there we flew to New York and caught our flight to Bom­bay.  In Bom­bay some­thing went wrong with the Sri Lan­kan as­pect of two of our five air­line tick­ets. I vol­un­teered to stay in In­dia and work on clear­ing up the tick­et­ing er­ror.  But an­oth­er stu­dent would have to stay, so they drew straws and the one with the short straw stayed in In­dia with me as the oth­er three caught their flights on to Sri Lan­ka.  It took more than a few days to feel com­fort­a­ble enough in get­ting around Bom­bay to dis­cov­er what had gone wrong and what had to be done to pur­chase new tick­ets for our jour­ney to Sri Lan­ka, which was a bit stress­ful.    I hadn’t slept well in the week it took to clear up the tick­et­ing er­ror.    We made new res­er­va­tions and were able to con­tin­ue our flight from Bom­bay to Co­lom­bo where I would meet my host fam­i­ly Mr. and Mrs. Al­bert Ed­ir­i­singhe.  I ex­pec­ted to be more for­mal with my host pa­rents, but they sug­ges­ted I call them Am­ma and Tha­tha.  With in­tro­duc­tions along the way, we at­ten­ded a near­by “house warm­ing” cer­e­mo­ny lat­er that eve­ning.  I en­tered the kitch­en with oth­er guests to get a plate of food and no­ticed that it did seem a bit hot in there,  but no wor­ries I could be in and out in just a few mi­nutes.  But not hav­ing slept well in In­dia, the heat in the kitch­en and sam­pling the spi­cy food made me feel a bit light head­ed.    Not want­ing to have any at­ten­tion fo­cused on me,   I braced against a near­by wall..but my knees wouldn’t hold me as I slid down the wall.  

Peo­ple rush­ed in the kitch­en to fuss over me think­ing I had some sort of heart con­di­tion. but I didn’t.  I just felt a bit light head­ed.  Tha­tha hel­ped me to my feet and said, “Jeff’s go­ing to be okay, he just needs a lit­tle air,” which was cor­rect.  We walked on to the bal­co­ny and talked about my town and my fam­i­ly.  Fresh air was just what I nee­ded.  This was my first day in Sri Lan­ka and I didn’t think I had made a very good im­pres­sion.    I feared I might be viewed as a strang­er from a strange land, but in the Ed­ir­i­singhe home I was ac­cep­ted as a son.  I was the son of a lead­ing op­ti­cian, who al­so hap­pened to be Vice Coun­sel Gen­er­al of Nep­al.  

Tha­tha’s young­est son Ja­na­ka came to the Uni­ted States to con­tin­ue his stud­ies, where my pa­rents be­came his pa­rents.   I was back in school study­ing Chem­is­try, Phys­ics, and Bi­ol­o­gy to earn a place in den­tal school.  Ja­na­ka was look­ing for an En­gi­neer­ing pro­gramme.  We be­came room­mates at North Car­o­li­na A&T State Uni­ver­si­ty, where Ja­na­ka grad­u­ated with high hon­ours. And I was ac­cep­ted to den­tal school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­o­li­na School of Den­tist­ry.  Tha­tha and Am­ma came to the States to vis­it their two sons, Ja­na­ka in his school of en­gi­neer­ing, and my­self in  my school of den­tist­ry.  A few years lat­er, Ja­na­ka was “Best Man” at my wed­ding in the States.  Want­ing this to be some­thing spe­cial, I re­turned to Sri Lan­ka with my bride  for the “Home Com­ing” Tha­tha gave us.   This was a great wel­come back home, in­vit­ing all our friends for the func­tion, which ended with a cul­tur­al pro­gramme. In 1983, at­tend­ing Ja­na­ka and Khul­sum’s wed­ding in Sri Lan­ka was an­oth­er high­light of my re­la­tion­ship with the ex­ten­ded fam­i­ly.  My fam­i­ly, the Gas­kin fam­i­ly, was the host fam­i­ly to the new­ly wed­ded cou­ple in Greens­boro, where Khul­sum  at­ten­ded the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­o­li­na and Ja­na­ka worked for South­ern Op­ti­cals, one of the larg­est op­ti­cal com­pa­nies in the U.S.A.  The bond­ing was even great­er with the Ed­ir­i­singhe and Gas­kin fam­i­lies, which ex­tends to the 3rd gen­er­a­tion with Tha­tha’s grand chil­dren: Gi­han­tha, Sa­vin­da, Ta­hire and Ra­hul,  hav­ing at­ten­ded col­lege in the Uni­ted States.  Upon grad­u­a­tion from den­tal school, I re­turned to Sri Lan­ka as a lone den­tal vol­un­teer on a den­tal mis­sion where care was pro­vi­ded on a tea es­tate.  My sis­ter De­nise vis­ited her fam­i­ly in Sri Lan­ka dur­ing a Christ­mas hol­i­day.  My moth­er Fran­ces Gas­kin would vis­it Sri Lan­ka a few years lat­er.  Months passed, years passed. Then one day I got a call in­form­ing me that Am­ma had passed away. It was a sad time and even sad­der as I was un­able to re­turn for the fu­ner­al of my Sri Lan­kan moth­er.  I re­turned to Sri Lan­ka in 2002 with a den­tal team of Uni­ted States Pub­lic Health Serv­ice den­tal of­fi­cers to pro­vide den­tal care at nu­mer­ous sites through­out the coun­try.    Tha­tha had en­tered the Bud­dhist or­der.  I asked Ja­na­ka about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing a day trip out of Co­lom­bo trav­el­ling south to vis­it Tha­tha.  Vis­it­ing the tem­ple in which Tha­tha was liv­ing, I saw from a dis­tance he was walk­ing the med­i­ta­tion cir­cle. See­ing me, he stop­ped say­ing, “It’s too hot out here for you, you aren’t used to this heat come let’s get you out of this heat.”   He ush­ered me in­to the tem­ple bare­ly giv­ing me time to re­move my shoes to sit and talk un­der the ro­tat­ing ceil­ing fans.  I wan­ted to tell him.I tried to tell him how know­ing him had changed my life mak­ing me chal­lenge my­self more to give more to my com­mun­i­ty and the world.   I had switch­ed from the study of Law to Den­tist­ry to do just that.. But Tha­tha wouldn’t let the dis­cus­sion fo­cus on him, he wan­ted to know about me, and what I’d been do­ing.Tha­tha’s good work con­tin­ues to be car­ried on by his chil­dren.   I’m go­ing to miss Tha­tha, his fine con­ver­sa­tion, his love of Sri Lan­kan cul­ture..and his pas­sion for do­ing the right thing.  But he will not be far away, cause he will be look­ing over us al­ways.
-Jeff