"He's in the room at the end," said my mother. "Don't make too much noise." I walked down the corridor of the ICU towards the room at the end of the passage. The smell of medicine in the air tickled my nostrils. On top of that, my eyes were squinting with pain because of a sprained ankle that I had been awarded in a football match the day before. But what I saw in the room which my mother had pointed out to me was to prove to be more painful than a sprained ankle.
        I saw a figure clothed in a white sheet from top to bottom. At first I was a little uncertain about the identity of the person, but the figure was unmistakable even under the covers. The shrouded person was my best friend, my constant supporter, and my mentor. He was the person who had been there for me in times of happiness as well as in times of distress. He was the man who I hero-worshipped constantly, the one person who I adored the most in the world. He was my father--and he was dead.…
        It was as if somebody had smashed my heart to a pulp using a mallet. I felt inundated by all the miserable emotions in the world. Loneliness covered me from all sides, and the dark cloud of misery threatened to annihilate me. Gone were the long nights when we would lie on the dew-ridden grass beside the sea. Gone were the days when we would laugh at each other's jokes for hours at an end. No longer would I be able to go talk to someone about my major life problems. It was truly an end of an era in my life and, sadly, life would never be the same again.
        The day my father died was definitely the worst day of my life. I felt extremely vulnerable to the terrors of this world. The fear of exposure now that my primary guardian was not there was continuously haunting me. I remember crying my heart out in the van which carried his body to the mosque for his funeral prayers. I remember throwing handfuls of wet sand into my father's grave as I bid a final farewell to him from this plane of existence. At that moment, I could not comprehend with acceptance of the fact that my eyes would never gaze upon his face again.
        Returning home after burying a parent is an ordeal. As I entered my building, I felt uneasy when I realized that I would never hear the thunderous voice welcoming me back home echoing down the staircase when I returned from school. The family sitting down and having a general chat in my bedroom was now a thing of the past. I sat down at the dining table to have dinner, but my eyes stared at the now-empty seat where my father would sit at suppertime. Tears flowed from my eyes and dropped down into my food as I ate reluctantly. I was literally "forced" to eat dinner that night.
        But the aftermath of my father's death was to teach me a lot of lessons. I saw people praising my father as a "good soul," and I realized that it was a man's honesty and morality that made him an exalted and respected person. My aims changed from "I want to become a rich man" to "I want to become a good man." I wanted the image of my father to live on; I wanted him to live on in me. But I was far from being a good man. I felt ashamed of what I had become. In those days, I'm sorry to say, I had degenerated into a very bad human being. Continuing to walk on such a path would only serve to soil my father's reputation, and so I decided that the time had come for me to walk back to the path of the righteous. I saw that a rocky road lay in front of me. But one of my father's favorite quotes echoed in my mind: "Thou art a falcon; circle high above the peaks of mountains." I looked up at the skies, winked at the Guy upstairs, and walked forth into the shadows of life....

       "Since the beginning of time, darkness has attempted to swallow light but light has always broken free..." (Old Chinese proverb)