SRIMA DISSANAYAKE-AN APPRECIATION: She walks in beauty like starry skies

Shakespeare’s famous words 
All the world’s a stage. 
And all the men and women merely players. 
They have their exits and their entrances. 
And one man in his time plays many parts
remind me of this remarkable woman, who performed all the varied roles in her life with exceptional excellence. 
As the news of Srima’s death reached me,  my mind flew back to when we first met, soon after Gamini first entered Parliament as a UNP MP in 1970. She was always the sweet and simple kind, one who remained the same, whether her husband was MP, an important Minister, or after his untimely assassination.  

Her radiant smile and gentle, serene presence were the highlights of her personality. Quite apart from being married to Gamini, Srima was a personality in her own right, although she never spoke about it and always had time for lesser mortals, who didn’t equal her in intelligence or qualifications.  She was a renowned academic from her schooldays at Ladies College where she ended up as Head Girl. She studied law, emerged as a lawyer and later had her own firm of legal consultants. She was the epitome of the woman behind a successful man and was a great strength and support to Gamini in his role in politics. Srima was a devoted wife and mother, who wore her motherhood like a badge of honour. Her husband and children were her priority, which was as it should be.
Srima and I were on the committee of seven, under the leadership of the late Mrs Elena Jayewardene who began the Seva Vanitha movement and were later on the first working committee of it too. I  enjoyed working with her as she was easy to get on with, was a good listener and believed in the importance of working together as a team. She never tried to outsmart or upstage others, flaunting her professional qualifications, which most of us on that committee didn’t possess. 

She was the first to applaud the success of others in the events they organized and was an example to us all in that particular sphere.
 Quite apart from our association through politics, her daughter Varuni and mine were classmates and friends. So we would often talk about our children, discuss mutual issues that arose as parents when they were at school. As I was a daughter of a paediatrician, she would sometimes call to ask me to advise her on doctors for her children, I recall her doing this when Mayantha was a child. 
None of us can fail to applaud her courage when putting her own grief and irreplaceable loss on hold, she bravely took up the challenge to contest as the candidate for The United National Party at the Presidential elections taking Gamini’s place. 
After the battle was over, she didn’t wallow in self-pity, but focused on her children and their needs, also worked towards fulfilling Gamini’s dreams and objectives by continuing his work for the nation. She began a Foundation in his name and also a vocational training centre for youth,  reaching out to underprivileged youth with sincere compassion. She also took an active interest in the Mallika Home, run by the Buddhist Women’s Association and in the Weerasekera Home for children.  She was a great, source of strength to her two sons as they followed their father into politics, which is hardly a safe field to be in today.

Whenever we met, she never failed to comment that she enjoyed reading what I wrote, greeting me with her radiant smile and inquiring about my children as I did about hers. Navin, Varuni and Mayantha, you can be proud of your mother and I know what pride she had in all three of you.         
I hope Srima and I will meet again, on that beautiful shore which I believe in as a Christian, or in another birth which she believed in as a Buddhist. She looked as serene and lovely in death as she looked in life in a soft beige saree, the kind of colour she always wore in life, which suited her so well. I will end with these words from Lord Byron’s famous poem which somehow epitomize Srima to me.
‘She walks in beauty like  the night of  cloudy climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and light.
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.