KOTTAYAM: A photograph of four generations of a family gathered around the mortal remains of their 95-year-old matriarch with smiling faces has evoked mixed reactions on social media, with some questioning the posed nature and “jovial mood” of the relatives and others posting that “you can’t dismiss someone’s grief because they are smiling”.
The photo clicked last Friday had gone viral on social media a few days ago.
The Panavelil family at Mallappally in Pathanamthitta, however, has a totally different and inspiring story to tell about the photograph. Fr George Oommen (68), the eldest son of Mariamma Varghese who passed away last Wednesday, said the family had been watching the reactions to the photo on social media since Monday night.
‘Though saddened, we were celebrating her life’
We are not at all interested in responding to social media reactions… This beautiful picture of us smiling with our mother’s mortal remains came after about four hours of self-reflection by four generations of the family,” said Fr George, who is a theological professor.
“The family was celebrating her life. Though we were deeply saddened by her demise, we wondered how we should celebrate her influence on all our lives. We all shared both funny as well as very loving moments we had with her. We smiled and at times broke into laughter sharing those memories and thanked god for her life before we took the photo. We are sure about what we have done,” Fr George said.
Mariamma Varghese, wife of late Fr P O Varghese, was bedridden for over a year and her health had worsened over the last few weeks. She has nine children and 19 grandchildren, all spread across the globe, but most of them were beside her when she passed away. Fr George said the family had observed the death of his father, who was also a priest, in a similar manner 10 years ago.
Mariamma’s granddaughter Harsha Elma Joseph, who is doing her PG in Psychology at Christ University, Bengaluru, said the body was brought to the house on Thursday and all family members were sitting around it from 4pm till Friday 3am. “All others left by around 11pm and only family members were there. We sat around her body and shared memories about her. Her life was so inspiring and we felt so proud of her. When we finally decided to leave to get some sleep before the funeral, one of us suggested that we should take a snap as it was a rare occasion when the whole family was together. We all decided to take that photo with smiling faces as there was nothing sad to feel about grandmother as she had led a fulfilled life,” she said.
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