The Pain of Loss and Agony of Travel Constraint
11-02-2022
By Stephen Apollo
Just imagine, you are thousands of miles away from home and then you hear the devastating news that your loving dad, to whom you are the only daughter and whom you have not seen for a couple of years, has passed on. To compound an already dreadful situation, you cannot travel home because of immigration constraints! To many, this is unfathomable.
This is exactly what happened to our colleague Cynthia Varghese, who lost her dad, Mr. S. Varghese Gnanasigamani, on October 8, 2022 in India. Mr. Gnanasigamani was 70 years old. Cynthia, is a first year student at McCormick and is the wife to the Rev. Immanuel Karunakaran, an alumnus of McCormick and now a PhD student at the LSTC.
In a memorial service held at the Augustana Chapel of the LSTC on October 26, 2022, we heard very moving tributes about Mr. Gnanasigamani and particularly how his life and witness touched many people in different ways. In the words of Immanuel, “Mr. Gnanasigamani was a man of his own making. He supported his family from an early stage, because he lost his father when he was a teenager. He was a very faithful person and he could not keep quiet in the face of injustice. He always raised his voice and he did not fear to do that. He was not scared of powers that be and he challenged the powerful. To Cynthia as the only daughter, he did everything for her even before she asked him. He was so genuine and a loving father.”
The Masters Student Council, in a message of condolence to Cynthia stated, “Cynthia—We pray that you and your family have the time, space and community in which you can grieve and find peace. And we regret that the US immigration system did not allow you the flexibility to make the trip home; let us imagine and create new systems that support, rather than alienate, international families like yours—without exception.”
Our prayers and thoughts are with Cynthia and her family as they continue to bear the effect of this very painful demise.
Photos taken during a memorial service for
Mr. Gnanasigamani on October 26, 2022