On death and dying...

This is one of the most unexpected topics I'm writing after a series of tags...Even I didnt expect to write this for a couple of hours ago I was working on another...How it struck me is a story by itself...
I was in the middle of a novel, about to fall eagerly into the arms of Somnus, who was enticing me into an aftenoon nap when my mom asked me to send an important mail...Quickly shaking off the sleeping-sand from my eye-lids, I sent the mail and was about to log off when I saw my friend online...It had been nearly a month since we spoke,but we did manage to keep in touch through scraps..Their family had hosted us in Srilanka and they've been our family friends for more than 30 years....So I began chattering a dozen to one(my usual style) and chided her playfully for having been dormant so long...It was then the shattering truth came out, her father was dead! It was like a blow,painful and sudden, I felt hot tears stinging my eyes...For a second I thought(wistful thinking)she was joking...But sadly this is not a matter that one talks about so lightly and I had to face it, he was gone...That one moment bringing back to my mind some dark moments tucked away in my mind,never to be erased...
Death or dying strictly stuck on to the screens in my life for a long time..As a child, I believed that the people who died would just get back to life the very next day(as in movies) and later I believed that they would join the numerous stars in the velvet sky..It was only when I was 13 and my great gran passed away that I felt the pain, the huge void in my heart,in the place where I had placed her..It was quite sudden and my mom kept telling me that she had died a peaceful death without having had to endure too much pain...But for me, it seemed impossible for my life to move along without having her with me...She meant alot to me and it took me years to accept the fact that she was gone....
Then I lost my best friend within a year..Nalini and I were more than friends, we were what they say "twin souls"..It was like replaying the incident all over...A friend calling up one night telling me that she was badly injured in an accident and within a few minutes a call saying that she was dead..It was way too sudden and I was too shocked to react...She was too young to die and I kept wishing that night that someone would call me the next day and would call it a joke and that we could laughter over it together...It never happened....
The tragedy is not death of the person but the death of something in you..When a person means alot to us, they become a part of us...So in their going away, we mourn not only for their departure but for the part in us that has gone away with them...Sometimes it takes so long for people to get over and accept the fact that they could never again come home to see their loved one's face, share a hug, hear their voice or even think about them without feeling the pain...The last moments we spent with them stand in perpetuum somewhere in us...
I remember vividly the time in Colombo when we were playing in the lawns making as much noise as possible and Gemunu uncle watching us with his wife and my parents, everyone laughing at our antics...and the last phone call Nalini made, with both of us giggling over some private joke and discussing about the colour of her prom dress...and the last song I sang to my great-gran the day before she left to the hospital and her smile...some pictures that were painted with a mixture of love,laughter,tears, sunshine, emotions that were too strong,some subtle..with so many things that we just cant describe but these pictures would be wtched in my heart forever,along with many memories....I dont know still what death is and I may not till I die...But all I know is, death is never really the end...In death, we all are born again..in someone's heart as a memory...like an old melody that still floats in the breeze, never to fade away completely....not truely there but always remembered...