Jungfraujoch – A 5 Generation Tradition

In the early 1920s a ship set sail from Port Louis, Mauritius on its way to France. Aboard were Louis Leclezio, (born 1873) his wife Jeanne, (born 1883) their nine children, the family cook, Goheen, the butler, Parass and the maid, Laurence. The family settled in Paris and from there, for four years they traveled across France and Europe.

In 1893, in an era when international tourist travel was reserved for a privileged few, Adolf Guyer-Zeller promoted the idea to construct the pioneer of all mountain railways to the top of the Jungfraujoch reaching an altitude of 3454 meters! By 1912, some 19 years later, Adolf Guyer-Zeller had died of a heart attack. But his sons had completed the project their father had dreamt of and the Jungfrau Railway began taking passengers to this Bernese Alp wonderland of year round ice and snow.

Thus in 1924, my grand father, Louis, and my father, Fernand together with his brothers, Phillippe and Jean, boarded the Jungfrau Railway to be transported to the heart of this glacier world on the very roof of Europe. Back then, who, could have ever imagined that people from the distant tropical shores of Mauritius would ever venture to those glorious icy summits at 3454 meters? Neither could they have imagined that 82 years later their descendants would join tourists from all over the world to experience these summits of highs at such great heights.

But is reality not repeatedly born out of dreams? Through the years, I had kept alive the stories passed down by my father, about their memorable visit to the top of Europe when he was only eighteen years old. And just in case I could not picture much of it exactly so, there was a picture to attest to their feat in those days of familiar family glory. The picture showed my grand father and three of his sons with their feet in ordinary shoes tramping through snow and standing on ice. I recalled asking questions like: “But your feet did not freeze?” Or “How difficult was it to breathe?” But my father always casually answered: “We were tough!” And then, he would invariably launch off into the story of the burly Swiss mountain guy who, looking at my grand father’s huge and solid hands had asked: “Sir, Can you please tell me how come the life lines are hoed so deeply in the palm of your hands?” And my grand father answered that those furrows mapping his love giving hands must have been chiseled there to tell the story of the multitude of furrows that had been trenched across the hot volcanic Mauritian soil to grow sugar cane.

That story and the picture made such an impression on me, that while I was growing up on the white beaches of Mauritius under its palm trees in the gentle warm breeze of the Easterlies, I always dreamt of also experiencing some day that permanently frozen white wonderland.

In 1991, 67 years after my grand father and father had been there, my childhood dream would finally become reality. My wife, our son Louis and I boarded the cogwheel train in Interlaken. We were on our way to discover that while dreams can often father reality, reality can sometimes take us a lot farther than our dreams can. On the train, the spectacular route first took us up to Kleine Scheidegg (altitude 2061 metres) located at the foot of the notorious Eiger North Wall.
From there, we changed trains and the Jungfrau Railway relentlessly climbed to the station at Eigergletscher, well known for its mountain restaurant and polar dog kennels.

One of the most inspiring sections of the railway line was the contrast offered by the 7km long, dark tunnel hewn through the rock of the Eiger and Mönch mountains. There, in the darkness of the tunnel, we marveled at the visionary bright minds that had the solid courage to conceive, to engineer and to blast and dig their way through sheer rock until the line emerged in the amazing grace of the horizonless world to be found at the end of the tunnel. As we came out of the pitch black tunnel into that light inundated snow white world, we considered the sharp contrasts along the journey and we felt like we had transited from the dark bowels of the earth to the glory of the womb of heaven!

A short five minute stop at two intermediate stations, Eigerwand and Eismeer situated in caverns blasted from the solid rock had prepared us for the fathomless beauty of the last leg of our historical journey! Both caverns have panorama windows that had launched us light-headedly into the breathtaking views that stretched deep into this Bernese Alpine wonder world.

When after a forty five minute ride, we arrived at the top of Europe, we first gazed speechless in awesome wonder at the views that extend as far as the summits of the Vosges Mountains in France to the eerie depths of the Black Forest in Germany. There, in order to celebrate and commemorate our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, I knelt on the Great Aletsch Glacier, longest ice stream in Europe (22 kilometer) and sang ‘Devant Jesus’ to my wife, Wendy! It was the song that had been sung to us on our wedding day at the Emmanuel Cathedral in Durban, South Africa! While I was singing, our son Louis was immortalizing this love scene on his video camera. In rhythm with the notes, Wendy and I were moving our arms softly up and down in tune with our love on a boundless flight into eternity! Some of the tourists looked on. They were probably thinking that the rarified air was responsible for this atmosphere of euphoric infinite love that united us with the Divine.

The song over, I stood up and we headed to the Ice Palace. On our way, we vowed and declared that some day, may be for our fortieth year anniversary, we would come back with all our family. In the ice palace, with our feet grounded on firm ice we felt that we had been on earth as close as we could ever be to God. While we wondered if that had been the same feeling our father and grandfather had tried to convey to us, we wanted our children and grandchildren some day to share our feelings about God’s limitless heavenly magnificence and munificence.

On October 6, 2006, once again, sitting on the Jungfrau train, I heard the couple opposite us conversing with our 7 year old Bernadette. They were from Washington State. They lived in the same neighborhood as Bernadette and … Yes! They were going up to the Jungfraujoch to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary!!!
I immediately joined in the conversation and told the retired Boeing engineer and his wife, how I was on the train with three of our children, their spouses and ten of our seventeen grand children to fulfill a fifteen year old dream! Celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary with the family on top of Europe! I thanked God and told the couple that their presence next to us and their own celebration, confirmed that although our ‘Mama’ could not be physically with us, she was definitely most present in spirit!

In the ice palace we all marveled at the size of the corridors and rooms carved out of sheer ageless ice together with a wide variety of other ‘theme’ carvings! While the family meandered through the labyrinths of icy walls exploring the caverns carved out of this gigantic glacier, I stood frozen still in front of a statue of ‘Father Time’ sculpted ‘life size’ in the timeless glacial ice. Mesmerized, I looked fixedly at him. I thanked God for all those who over time had worked overtime and given up their lives, including those who had died eagerly digging through the Eiger and Monch rock munching their way deeper and deeper into the tunnel so we could be together on that day savoring this particular moment in time.

Lost in thought, I was brought back to reality by the stone cold voice of ‘Father Time’. It appeared to be reverberating through the ice corridors. I was not dreaming. To be sure that I was not spacing out, I watched his icy jaws move up and down as he mouthed the words: History! Tradition! Love! Is that what brought you here?

With my eyes full of joyful tears, I nodded a silent yes. ‘Father Time’ cracked an icy smile and said: “You deserve to know some of my secrets. I encapsulate them in the timeline written within my icy bosom. On your way back down to the bottom of my mountain look deep into the crevasses of the glacier. You may find our ageless version of the modern day digital memory card. Activate it and decode it and you will find frozen in the ice flows of all times the picture of all those who have come to this glacial world. For as man comes to gaze at this frozen world wonder and take my picture; I, in turn take snaps of the wonder that is each man and woman created in the image of God! Should you not find or be unable to read my memory card, down in Interlaken, you will find an ancient burly Swiss man carved out of a single piece of wood. Look at the deep lifelines carved within the palms of his hand. They tell a story. Tell him that I, ‘Father Time’, sent you to hear his story. He will then explain to you the origin of those deep life lines.

Back in Interlaken, we found the ancient burly Swiss man carved out of a single piece of wood with the deep life lines carved within the palms of his hand. When I told him that ‘Father Time’ had sent us, he raised his chin, smiled and began to speak: “You see kids, we all come from a single and same lifeline of deep unselfish love. However depending how hard we work and how much we give of ourselves to others, the lifelines of our giving or withholding hands become more or less pronounced. I got mine while giving the best I could picking away at the hard icy rock through the tunnel that leads through the Eiger and Monch.

As we listened speechless, he went on to say: “Decades ago I met a colossus of a man from a distant tropical isle. He was also a very giving man. Indeed he was the only other man I ever met who had lifelines as deep as mine!

Could it be that you are here today because of your heredity? ‘Father Time’ up there on the mountain has our picture within his bosom. He sent me an sms telling me that you looked like the man I met once upon a time from a distant tropical isle and that I was free to talk to you. While you were standing deep in thought in front of him “Father Time’ read in the lifelines across the palms of your hands. He found that according to your DNA, you share common genes of love for family, for tradition and for history with the man I met from that distant tropical isle! So, there you are friend. That is why I am confiding in you! Now, before you leave, ‘Father Time’ also told me, to be sure to tell you to pray that you pass that same love, that rare source of all wealth to the next generations. He was most pleased to note in his timeless bosom that you appear well on your way to doing so and that your progeny is keenly following the example set by your ancestors!

With much timeless love, constant hope and enduring faith, please permit me to join ‘Father Time’, your ancestors, your children, your grand children present and absent in prayer. Together we will pray that 10, 20, 80 and any number of years from now this and other generations of your descendants will continue to uphold dearest to them, your Catholic family traditions and its profound love for God and His creation from the glacial heights to the tropical heat of your shores!

The mountain has revealed all this to you Through ‘Father Time’ and I so that in turn you can all go and tell it to all the other mountains of the world over the hills and every where…

Thank you for your visit. Thank you for reading this through. Thank you for praying. Thank you for your Godly love of ALL Creation! Now Listen........