Prasad "Mony" Abraham

I've had the privilege of knowing Mony Uncle since birth. He and Shanthy aunty were always encouraging, always supportive, always telling me to move back to OKC, and always telling me how much they were praying for me. His biggest thing was he always wanted everyone to be together and to have a sense of unity at church. They showed up for every meeting and helped out and stayed after to help clean up. He gave loud amens, big hugs, and told people how he honestly felt. Every time I sang on a Sunday, I could count on Mony Uncle to be encouraging, no matter how I thought it sounded. He would be the first to always say "good job today" or "I liked that song". But I grew up listening to him sing and watching him worship. Although I never learned to speak Malayalam, I could memorize the way he sang songs and some of the pronunciations. I learned to love the tunes. Even now, when I hear someone sing a song differently than the way he sang it, I think it's being sung wrong. He took praise and worship seriously and always saw it as his personal ministry, and I think that shaped the way I saw what leading worship was. There was a time between 2003-2004 that I came over to their house every week unannounced. Every Sunday after church, my friend Sharon and I would walk down my street and stop at every Indian's house for about a mile, and his house was one of those stops. Even though we probably annoyed him, I can't remember him ever turning me away when I came to his door. He didn't tell me to go home or ask if I had homework to do or say that I came over the last 10 weeks. He would direct me to the backyard, and say "the boys are jumping on the trampoline", and he and Shanthy aunty would let us in and offer us something to drink and eat. During those times at their house, I remember Brian and Ben showing me some photo albums. One picture was of Mony Uncle as a young man and a signature written on the picture that was a heart and Santhy, and so I asked why Shanthy aunty signed the picture of Mony Uncle. Brian said no, Mony Uncle wrote on the picture himself ❤️ Santhy to say "Mony loves Santhy". And I remember being shocked that a malayalee man would admit that he was in love in writing, and that his sons would see it as completely normal for a man to admit that. Up until that time, I had never heard a malayalee man admit that he loved anyone. I remember the girls at church would mention how well he and his brother Baby Pastor took care of their wives. It was very noticeable that this was something rare, and I think it gave the church girls a standard to look forward to, and equipped Brian and Ben with a good perspective on how marriage should look like. In high school, me and Brian and Allen were in choir together, and after our choir concerts were over, he would make us stand together and take pictures. I could understand him taking pictures of Brian because that's his kid, but he always acted like we were his kids too. He took so many pictures and videos, and it was only after college when I came over once, did I realize just how many videos there were. He was always so supportive of everything we did, and I think he really saw every kid in our church as his own kid. Mony Uncle and Shanthy aunty showed up to my house the week of my wedding to see how we were doing and bring food. After we got married, he was kind to Joshan and even to my sister-in-law Elsa, and told her to move to Oklahoma every time she visited here. She always felt welcomed and would say, "The uncles here are so nice!" But that was just his nature. For the leadership seminar on Saturday, he showed up and the guy leading the training asked him what his position was at the church. He said "I have no position, I'm just a church member." But everyone was quick to correct him and say that he was a worship leader and did so much for the church. He was paired up with Joshan for that seminar, and we were supposed to write down one big win we had had, something that was really good that had had happened recently. He said his big win was that his knee was feeling better that day and he was in less pain. But what he actually wrote on the paper were 3 main leadership positions he had held at church over the last 38 years and what all he accomplished with each position. Joshan said it looked like a resume. Knowing now what pastor said on Sunday about finishing the work God has for you, it's almost like you could see that he had finished a lot of work, although what he really accomplished was probably dozens of times more than what he had written on that paper. His spiritual resume was much longer than he realized. As we were leaving the seminar Saturday afternoon, his thoughts were about making sure his kids and grandkids were fed. My last conversation with him was very short, but showed me that he paid attention to little details of my family since knowing them over the last 38 years. I remember thinking how nice it was to have a group of people who know our family so well, for so long. I didn't realize how much I took that for granted. If I had known then that it was my last conversation with him as he would be gone in less than 24 hours, I would have told him how much he meant to me, how much of an impact he made on my life, how I'm grateful for the care he showed me like I was his own daughter. And I know so many can say that. We miss him very much and life will truly never be the same. We eagerly await the day that we can see all of our loved ones again.