A COLLEAGUE AS PRECIOUS AS AMILA

    Thursday 27 December, 2012

 

Letters to the Editor

A Colleague as Precious as Amila 

Hameed Abdul Karim 

It was deeply grieving to hear of the tragic demise of Amila Jayasinghe. Reading the stories about her written by the staff at Ceylon Today it would only be a hard heart that wouldn't break. Poor thing. So young and like a flower about to bloom.

Having a daughter her age, my heart goes out to her parents and the rest of the family in this terrible heart rending moment of their lives. No father, and here I speak as a father, should suffer the agony of having to bury his child. It's just not fair. Our children are supposed to bury us and not the other way around.

Oh, but such is life...and I guess we can philosophise  as much as we want, but our hearts ache all the while. But then we do that just to make the pain bearable. Her parents....how shall they bear the pain? How does one move on in life after a tragedy like this? Is there another day tomorrow?

Poor Amila will forever be in their hearts and minds. And all the while her soul, as she says in her poetry, 'will be locked inside an invisible cage, but neither of us will find the key to ours and be free'. How prophetic here words were! And as we mull those words of a girl in the tender years of her youth, we wonder if  they were premonitions, informing the world in advance of her early departure.

I pray to God almighty that He gives Amila's folks and those of you at Ceylon Today the courage and fortitude to bear the the pain of losing a daughter and a colleague as precious as her. And may God guide and bless you all.