When the World had lost colors .....
Colors are important. They give meaning, beauty and even purpose to our lives. Any thing we imagine, we think of colors; an upcoming function, the color of the attire, an area for decoration, color of the decor, a new home to be built, the color scheme of walls and accessories, and if its a new car, then the desired shade of the vehicle in question. All these remain among some very important questions throughout our lives. Colors are just everywhere. They make our day, beautify our lives and Laila just loved them. Like words and phrases colors spoke to her, enchanted her heart and mesmerized her sight. Sometimes whispering and singing, and sometimes calling or inviting her for a thought so fresh and innovative that it would capture her heart and make her smile. Colors were her friends that stayed around and close no matter what. There were dark, gray and brown shades when she shut her eyes tight or opened them into the dark night. The steel gray sky in the winter just before the rain began. The orange tinged horizon during the sunrise and sunset. The white floating majestic clouds and oh, the soft white snow flakes floating down delicately embracing the earth. The green vegetation that looked fresh and joyous during rain giving hope for the cool days to come. Oceans, rivers, mountains, hills, and all the earthly and heavenly existence were in fact all names for varying colors wherein she dwelled, bathed and breathed in, feeling their presence touching her ever so softly, patting her hair and cheeks filling her heart with immense joy and hope and persuading her to live, and struggle on, no matter what the odds were and yet it all changed within that one crucial moment.
“He’s no more,” a much dreaded verdict coming from the doctor attending her terminally ill father had changed it all. Her father who had been, for years, her guiding and nurturing force, a friend, and a powerful ally helping her in translating her dreams and achieving the impossible.
He was a solid rock force to support and encourage her when the time was hard and challenges were overwhelming were the words she heard when the universe had lost all its colors. She was shocked.
She was terrified. She looked up to the sky, the clouds, and then stared hard at the ground. Her heart jumped and her steps faltered but it was true. The trees, the leaves, the things, the faces had colors no more. They were just haze and smoke. Her own existence just a colorless bubble, a dream. The busy noisy surrounding was nothing but a large mass of dark dreary grayness shades were her last words before the flood of tears tore through her dim cloudy eyes choking her throat, wrenching her grieving heart swirling her down and down in the deep abyss of nothingness but sorrow and grief. Death is an inevitable journey, a lasting departure from the embrace of loved ones and from the warmth of life itself. Sometimes so many things are remained unsaid, emotions unexpressed and appreciations unshared that the sense of loss deepens further, thrusting the living ones to a deeper grievance. For a long time, Laila stayed immersed in that cocoon of hurt. Calls, condolences, soft words of solace and encouragements, and finally the funeral had a part reality part dream atmosphere. Nothing could help her. Nothing would help her ever it seemed but the Greatest Force of the universe has not left it unattended, the Great Maker who created the earthly life as a trial, and a test with monumental tribulations but is never absent where His power of heal is wanted.
To the hurting hearts, glistening teary eyes, and the muted pleas, He is always near. He is the Living, ‘Al-Hayee’. He is the Everlasting, ‘Al-Qayyim’ all alert, watching over the matters of the heaven and the earth. “Neither dozing nor sleeps overtakes Him.” (2: 255) “He is there wherever you are.” (57:4) Laila reached out for support and there He was, so close, listening to her heart cries in thesad solitude and in the late hours of the dark night. He reached out and ever so gently guided her to the Message of hope. “Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition of wealth and children- like the example of a rain whose (resulting) plant growth pleases the tillers: then it dries and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes (scattered) debris” (57:20) was a message relating facts. “Every soul will have taste of death”
(3 : 185) described a reality so indisputable that even kings and queens of the powerful realms couldn’t fight and relent.
“And be patient over what befalls you” (31:17) was a message of patience in the face of challenges and affliction. The color of perpetual hope, “The life of this world is ephemeral whereas the Hereafter , that is the permanent abode” (49: 30).
Soon Laila found varying colors in such messages, the color of truth, reality, justice and hope and ever so gradually other colors began to return in her life. She comprehended well that the life of this world was just temporary and the everlasting abode was in future with a perfect life of fulfillment, with the loved ones by her side, never to part ever again.