My father passed away 24 years ago. If he were alive and happened to read this, I’m certain I would have received an earful from the title alone. He was quite particular about how his children addressed their parents. “Daddy” and “Mummy” were firmly discouraged; instead, he insisted we use our traditional vernacular terms.

As a child, I found this a tad confusing. For instance, we addressed our maternal grandparents as Appachan (grandfather) and Ammachi (grandmother), yet my mother and her sisters also called their own parents Appachan and Ammachi. My father, meanwhile, was Achachan, and my mother was simply Amma. To make matters even more interesting, some families also use Achachan when addressing an elder brother. Looking back, navigating family titles in Kerala—now officially Keralam—was both fascinating and thoroughly confusing for a young child.

All things considered, growing up in Kerala was never dull; it was a place where even something as simple as knowing what to call a family member could become an adventure. (A full explanation of what to call aunts, uncles, cousins, and their dogs will require a separate thread—and perhaps a flowchart.)

To be honest, I never had a particularly close bond with Achachan. My parents were working abroad for most of my childhood, so we only got to see him during holidays. By the time my parents returned home permanently, I had already left for college in another city, which meant that our interactions continued to be limited to family gatherings and vacation periods.

As I grew older, however, I began to notice and appreciate certain qualities in my father. Not a single day seemed to pass without his morning exercise routine, which often lasted around ninety minutes. Even when he was a guest in someone else’s home, he would invariably find a quiet corner to do his yoga and maintain his routine.

Two other traits that stood out to me were his unwavering commitment to personal prayer and his meticulous standards of personal hygiene. The latter occasionally bordered on obsessive, but it is something I have come to appreciate. In fact, I think both my brother Joseph and I have inherited a measure of the same and neither of us are complaining.

Twenty-four years later, when I found myself thinking about Achachan this morning, I realized that if there is one quality of his I would most like to inherit, it is his steadfast commitment to praying for the intentions of others. I remember two close friends of mine who had developed feelings for each other but were anxious about whether they would receive their parents’ approval to marry. When I mentioned their situation to my father, he immediately took out his diary and carefully noted down their names and intention. There was nothing dramatic about it; he simply added them to the list of people and causes he prayed for regularly. About a year and a half later, the parents’ approval finally came through, and everything fell into place without any complications. When I shared the news with my father, he simply said, “Okay,” took out his diary, found their names, and crossed them off his intercessory prayer list. It was such a small, ordinary gesture, yet it revealed something profound about him. He had faithfully carried their intention in prayer all that time, not for days or weeks, but for well over a year. I do not know why this particular memory surfaced today, or why, among all the qualities I could admire or wish for, this is the one that resonates most deeply with me. Perhaps it is because there is something beautiful about that kind of earnestness—the quiet sincerity of remembering the needs of others and faithfully praying for them long after everyone else has forgotten.

Achacha, I wish my boys had the chance to meet you—to learn swimming from you, exercise with you, and create memories with you. But I know you’ll be watching over us and praying for us from heaven.

There’s something I never said to you when you were here, and I wish I had: I love you.