Consoling Tara!!!

Dear Tara,
For life and death are one even so as the river and the sea are same. Death is not the absence of life but it is the transporting of the soul. Just as there remains an enchanted Island where only the mind can transport us, so it is with death, for it is only through death that we all can live life, yet again.
Tara my dear, I write to you with sadness and grief. I struggle to keep a firm grip on my pen because I feel your pain. I understand your pain Tara because I have lived through it all. I was in shock to receive your letter in such a short space of time. It is the shortest letter ever to be written to me I think, but certainly the shortest letter I have ever received so far in my decades of existence. As I ponder on the contents of your letter, I can just imagine the pain you must have gone through and the energy it would have required to scribble the words “I just found out my dad passed away in Gambia”. I opend the letter, read its contents, folded it away and carried on my chores. My eyes saw the words but my mind did not translate it.
Hours passed and I wondered to myself why I had not heard from you. I went to check my mail box again and there I found the opened letter laying conspicuously amongst your previous letters. I picked it up and read the contents; it hit me like a jolt of lightening. I was knocked off my feet and I momentarily lost consciousness.
Tara, you told me how your dad was your best friend and how you were his favourite. You life revolved around his existence and now he has been transported to the hereafter. This is painful; this is excruciatingly painful. This is tragic and this is so sad. This pain is further compounded for the fact, which is not so simple as many may want you to believe, that, you are far away in Puntalana. Your father was a religious Muslim and thus, will be buried according to Islamic rites. Time will not allow you to be there. Distance is solidly against you and would not permit you to see him one last time. Uncle Corona with all his mayhem and destructive constructs has further compounded matters. This my dear is why I feel for you most. This is the true definition of pain. Pain that you may never be able to adequately describe. Never! This pain will live on with you and it shall always abide with you. Some say it will go away with time but I tell you today that it will not go away, but with time it will get familiar and therfore can live with it. However, it never goes away.
Tara dear, my heart is sore. My heart aches for you but even so for me. I am reminded of my own pain; my emptiness. I am reminded of my circumstance and situation. One that almost always leaves me in a state of perpetual sadness and angony. I may never be able to tell you of my own pain because they are never understood or felt in a similar way. They are as diverse and unique as they come. 7 years it has been since I held my mother in my arms whilst she breathe her last and all this while holding my hands in hers and looking straight into my eyes, right through to, the depth of my soul. That day my life stopped. I died to life. My everything was taken away from me. I had no father, no brother and no Sister. My mother was everything packaged in one. She was my best friend; My Confidant and my first love. The day my mother died felt like coming home to be told that your mum had passed on. You then turn around to ask for your father and you were told he died too. You further asked for your siblings and was told the same thing; they had all passed on. That was how I felt when my mother died because I knew I was finished. Everything was gone in an instant.
Tara, I write to you amidst uncontrollable tears. I quit law school to care for my aged mother. I bath her. I fed her. I cooked for her. I cleaned after her. I spent many nights sleeping on cold hospital floors in different countries. I did all of this because my love for her had no bounds. I prayed like I had never prayed before, asking God to heal my mother. I begged God for just one more chance so that at least, she can see me become a lawyer which was both our dream. I begged that she can at least reap the fruits of her womb and the benefits of her toil and sweat. My God refused me my wish Tara and I watched him demonstrate his power, glory and might before my very eyes, as he called my mother to him whilst I watched helplessly on. I wanted to curse God and die. I asked myself a million times which sort of God will do this to his servant. I even doubted his existence. I watched helplessly as my own precious and dear mother took her last breath. I closed her eyes. Took off her rings and wore them. Took her chain off her neck and put them around mine. I took off her headscarf and tied it across from under her chin right to the top of her head, just as she had taught and told me to, many many years before. I then closed the door to her hospital room and cried myself to nothingness. Like a still and calm voice after a very violent storm, the words of my mother echoed deep within me, words iv heard her say many times when she battled with one adversity or another. ” in everything give thanks “. The words were distinct as if it were spoken to me by someone standing right beside me. I got up, dried my tears, and took charge to ensure I gave my mother the farewell she deserved. I knew I had to be strong and in control one more time to give her a befitting funeral. This I did.
Tara dear, I will not wish to go on about my mother. That will be another letter for another day. Today it’s about your father. Your best- friend and Confidant. He has played his part and has gone on ahead before you. Meet again you will. He has gone but he has not left. Walking side by side with you he is. Guiding and lightening your path, he always will. When the tears stop and numbness go, look beyond the skies and feel his presence near thee. He has not gone. He lives in you.
No one is actually dead until the ripples they form on earth dies away. You and I are the ripples formed. We have not gone away. We live to fight another day.
Your FATHER lives; my MOTHER lives, their ripples live on. Stay strong and always remember, there remains an enchanted Island, deep within the depths of our soul.When the pain becomes unbearable, transport yourself, and I will be at the other end of that Island, looking on beyond the horizon and listening to the music of the waves.
Your Friend that was, is and always will be,
Melville.