Christmas Day 2018 and a “Son of Peace”

elizabeththarakan
Dec 28, 2018
2 min read

This is the full text of the eulogy I delivered this morning at my dad’s funeral Mass at St. Gabriel’s Parish.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us in this celebration of our father’s life and memory.

Kuria Tharakan was born the day that World War II ended in Europe. Because of this, his mother called him a “son of peace.” He loved to attend Mass, and called us all to remind us of holy days of obligation. He even took our family on a religious pilgrimage to Fatima, Portugal and Vatican City, where we together prayed 100 rosaries. On Christmas Day, he met his Maker wearing a scapular of the Virgin Mary, which according to Catholic teaching guarantees his safe passage into Heaven.

Our father came of age at 22 years old, when his father passed away. He found himself in the position of having to put his dad’s affairs in order, taking care of his widowed mother and two sisters. My brother Joseph, his spitting image and also age 22, finds himself facing the same tasks today.

Despite having to fulfill duties, our dad loved adventures. He enjoyed fishing in a canoe on the lake near his Cherthala farm. He loved to discuss Plato’s philosophy and the constellations with his father, a lawyer and a great intellectual. His adventures really became exciting in Trivandrum Engineering College, where he was a table tennis champion and represented Kerala in the All-India Debate Championships. He was gregarious and made many friends in engineering school, including one friend who would eventually become the principal and host his family for tiffin.

His greatest adventure was immigrating to America. He qualified for a Greencard under the legal EB2 carve-out for “persons of exceptional ability.” And he reminded our family of this regularly. The adventures didn’t end when he got to New York City: he attained his MBA at Baruch College and lived in Gramercy Park. His resemblance to a Malayalam film star attracted seventeen doctors who lined up to marry him. The doctor who won the big prize was our mother.

Our dad loved eating bean curd Szechuan style, debating the articles in The New York Times, following the stock market, and reading Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. He took guests for rides in his red Chevrolet Suburban, driving them to view the Riverdale horizon. He called this “where the earth meets the sky.”

The last thing my father said to me was, “No matter how much of a headache you cause me, I will miss you very much.” I’ll miss you too, Daddy. I hope you find yourself where the earth meets the sky.