The Unyielding Tapestry:

Triumphs and Tragedies in the Jayawardane Family Saga

Euphracia and Lewis’s marriage is expected to produce children soon, but they wait four years in vain. Society gossips about them, calling Euphracia barren and shaming her. It seems she alone is responsible for their childlessness.

Then, they finally have a son, John Francis. They are overjoyed, feeling free from the world’s criticism. However, their happiness is short-lived, as their baby boy dies before his first birthday. The young couple mourns their loss, a common sorrow for many parents in 1929. Francis’s life is snipped by a simple fever that turns him blue. He dies at home in Euphracia’s lap, watched by a helpless Lewis.

That year, the world is gripped by fear as the Great Depression hits. Sri Lanka also feels the impact. Following a century of British occupation, it becomes a dominion with limited autonomy.

Two years later, they have another son, John Christie. Following him two daughters, my mother, Mary Susan, and my auntie, Mary Catherine are born.

Lewis and his wife’s family photo in 1940. From left are Christie, Lewis’s only son; Anna Ranasinghe, Lewis’s mother-in-law and Euphracia’s mother; Lewis himself; Susan, my mother; Catherine, Lewis’s youngest daughter and Lewis’s wife. Euphracia.

Lewis and Euphracia face tragedy again when she loses her mind when my mother is eight, and Catherine is only three. Euphracia is sent to a mental hospital, leaving her young children without their mother’s love and care.

The children grow up during World War II, a chaotic time with shortages.

The trauma Euphracia endures leaves indelible scars, and her recovery proves elusive. For much of her adult life, she is confined to a dreadful asylum, separated from her family. This places the burden of raising their three children solely on Lewis. He tirelessly juggles the duties of a school principal, breadwinner, and, more importantly, a single parent, striving to provide a stable and loving environment for his three children. All this while continuing to be the family patriarch, the firstborn and the only English-educated among Lewis’s siblings.

Lewis’s two brothers, Simeon and Francis, are not interested in academia. They prefer farming, their family’s traditional occupation and business. Lewis urges his younger sisters, Anna and Agida, to become teachers. Only Anna listens to him.

My mother is the first to marry among Lewis’s children. When my mother marries my father, Don Thomas Jayasinghe, an aspiring young man who impresses Lewis, Euphracia remains in the mental asylum.

My father is a permanent optimist and a self-improver. With my mother’s stoic leadership, they form a formidable pair. Seven years after Sri Lanka became independent, I am born into this new era of optimism and promises. I am a bearer of hope, harmony and prosperity.

I am the keeper of a tranquil life that has escaped previous generations.

I am a custodian of peace, and hence this poem below:-