The friend who was always there

Aleric Fernando

Those who pass from this world die, only when we whom they loved forget them. Three months after his passing away, all those who knew Aleric find it hard to accept that he is no more in our midst. He always seemed to exude a sense of belonging to those whom he was in contact with, took pleasure in wanting to do things for others, and hardly ever fell short of the same commitment which a famous poet once expressed thus:-

"Bid me to live, and I will live,
Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee".

Regular telephone calls and occasional visits were some of the gifts that Aleric endowed me with. Aleric happened to be the last of those who accompanied me to visit my father at his bedside when he was critically ill at the General Hospital, and how he gripped my arm to comfort me as we watched him gasping for breath.

With the loss of a friend, a curfew has descended upon us.

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly over the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me". - Gray

By Mervyn Nanayakkara