Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:33:54 -0800 (PST) From: From PAES <[email protected]>
Many, many years ago when God sent an angel and took my little sister away from us, it was heart-breaking to see my mother sob bitterly for days together. My father weathered the agony with less visible emotions, but hastened to commemorate the loss by placing an angel at the head of my sister?s marble tombstone. That was like asking the Lord: "Let the angel keep a watch". But what was really thought- provoking was an old woman by my mother's side consoling her diligently with these words: "Zaun, Devachich khoxi zali". Over the years, those seemingly wise words, uttered in sheer submission to the will of God, helped me tide over many more family losses. But never did they strike me so eerily until another day of reckoning came to pass. This time it was an angel that swooped down on a taxi-cab that had just rammed into a lamp-post, instantly killing the driver and another occupant. Mysteriously enough, two others who survived were the very ones that had persuaded this occupant to join them on a journey that was destined to be fatal. Later, they recounted the harrowing loss of their loved classmate at the medical school, and unwittingly shattered the lives of three more. My son of 23 years was that classmate and gone forever, leaving behind his distressed mother and a sister to share in my sorrow. Mario responds: I can summon no words that can make any difference to your unimaginable sorrow at the loss of a younger sister and a young son, both in the prime of their lives. You have lived my worst nightmare - the loss of a child, as well as the equally tragic loss of a younger sibling, both unspeakable tragedies that turn convention and reason and the normal order of things upside down. May God continue to give you and your family the strength to carry on, to celebrate the all-too-short time you did enjoy with them, perhaps to use the heavy cross you have been asked to carry to counsel others that death always lurks around the corner but that life must go on. My heartfelt condolences.
