EVERYTHING HAS A MEANING IN GOD’S DESIGN

Dr Rangnath smashed the coconut onto the foot steps of his newly constructed house,  marking a new beginning of his retired life. As a chief medical officer in kannur district of Kerala life was often bit more busy than required at that age. This new house of theirs was a dream house especially for his wife  Suman . All through her life she lived in the stingy government accommodations, and you know how they are ? The interiors and fitments are never to your taste, seepage with the first rains would forecast the onset of monsoons and the creaky sound from doors and cupboards would never go, no matter how hard you try to grease them. This house of theirs was built with the choicest interiors and all things perfectly matching in color and design. Suman’s kitchen was  state of the art modular and ergonomically designed. This was perfectly what she had longed all through her life in those government accommodations. Dr Rangnath was a surgeon of highest order with an eye and hand for perfection. In his  profession , he couldn’t afford a smallest incorrect incision or for that matter an extra small suture. As per him ,things could only  be  medically correct, if they were surgically perfect. His perfectionist attitude could well be seen in their house. Dr Rangnath was a placid personality in love with nature. It is this reason that albeit he remained away from village all though his life, he finally decided to settle down in his native town in a serene environment away from the hustle bustle of city life.  India's abysmally low doctor-patient ratio - one doctor for 2000 people, and medical emergencies kept him busy  all these years of his service. In this fuss, he could never realize when his children  grew up,  moved on to their professions and his service came to a terminal end. In his retired life keeping himself close to nature , he planted a coconut tree in the back yard of his house.  The daily morning  routine would begin with watering this tree and watching sprouting of leaves  gave an immense pleasure. Bringing up a coconut palm is like raising a child. Its germination takes six months and it almost takes 20 years for a palm to mature and  reach its full potential with an average life span of at least 80 years. With his care the palm was growing at a healthy pace and its husk would get thicker as days passed by. The noticeable growth of the palm would also  indicate that reasonable time has passed since their children visited last and their visit must be around the corner.  Time had flown and this young palm was now over fifteen feet in height, when it conceived its first fruit of it’s life span. Sipping their morning tea sitting under the sprawling leaves of the palm, Suman noticed that the young palm had  ripped coconuts this year. Dr Rangnath grinned and told Suman , “their two children she had raised , but this palm was his post retirement parenting , trying to recover the joy he had missed experiencing his own children growing”.

Consoling him Suman said “ no, you have been a perfect father as you have been a perfect surgeon, else our son wouldn’t have become an IAS and daughter wouldn’t have been a practicing doctor in London.”

Dr Rangnath said” you have always been modest in giving  all the credit to me and I am lucky to have you as my better half”

He thought of sharing the first fruit of his palm with his wife. He couldn’t control the feeling of his joy at a thought of sipping coco water together from same nut. This feel brought a brisk smile on to his face. Dr Rangnath climbed the stairs to reach the roof top to pluck the coconut. He went to the edge of the roof to reach for the fruit , his reach was just a couple of inches short, he leaned forward in  an extra effort and then he realized that he had leaned little more than he could balance and there was nothing on the roof to support him. Coming down with a force, his head  hit the white marbel floor of the backyard. It was a fatal head injury. Now, Dr Rangnath is no more there, but that palm still stands as a symbol of his love, affection and a reason for Dr Rangnath’s union with GOD the Almighty.

No one has ever been able to understand God’s design. In the panoramic view of life, more often than not, we would realize that everything has a purpose and we don’t understand it, until life unfolds it’s meaning to us. The coconut tree had a specific purpose of being the reason for Dr Rangnath's union with God,What may seem to us as an error, is actually a perfect part in God's  script. This story is inspired by a true incident.