*WAS A BORN LEADER*
Premature passing of Scholarly Lanil Peiris an Unbearable Loss
By Srian Obeyesekere
It is with a profound sadness the premature passing away of Lanil Peiris at 42 years hits us.
I never knew Lanil, the second of two sons and a daughter to my friend Lakith and Shereen Peiris. But in those solemn moments at the Methodist Church at Rawathawatte, Moratuwa, the oration by one of his closest Thomian batch mates, portrayed this strapping, handsome personality accentuated by short cropped hair style as a born leader to whom his batch mates and others he associated with looked to.
As his close batch made narrated, he was loved by them all as Lala, and was so attached to the Thomian family at S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia hailing from the 2004 batch that his untimely passing away was a terrible blow knowing how much his value input bound them together. Throughout his college days, Lala had been such a source of inspiration, and beyond college he was as much a draw in the outside world where he went on to make a great name.
Lanil was a super, super internationally qualified IT expert who launched his professional career at Triad before moving on and going on to set up his own company before the cruel hand debilitated him in a long illness he braved bedridden for over two years.
As the Church Priest in that final eulogy described Lanil, he never lost his amiability even in the worst. On that final day of October 20th sometime before he breathed his last Lanil had braved pain as the nursing staff at the Sri Jayawardenapura Hospital struggled to draw blood from his veins. Soon after when his mom Shereen had fed him some tea, he had said, “Thanks mama” in his usual cheer, and upon receiving holy communion had said, ‘Thank you Father. bless you.”
Lanil leaves behind his wife and daughter and son.
In the final tribute to Lanil, it is opportune to dwell on John Donne’s poetic words, ‘death be not proud…:
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. – *Donne*
