Let me introduce you to my good friend Rum. When Rum was a little boy he lived with his widowed mother in a small village. Most of the villagers were really kind to Rum and his mother, and aided them financially in times of crisis. His mother was a remarkable lady who, unlike most others, refused to see men after her husband's death. Whenever somebody in the village asked her to give a serious thought to remarrying, she always replied sternly, "My son has lost his father. I don't want him to lose his mother too." Everything was going good until Rum really lost his mother and soul mate on his seventeenth birthday. He couldn't cry. All he could do was rove about the village and beyond its limit, madly searching for his best companion of seventeen years. Some people thought that his deep sorrow had him insane already. Rum told me how he had refused to see his mother's corpse and fled to town while the entire village had gathered for her funeral.
Some years later I knew my friend had graduated but was still looking for something better to be than a full time private tutor in the city. When I visited him I found he was then leading quite a happy middle class family life with a wife and a physically handicapped daughter. It was good to hear that despite being on a tight budget he no longer had to rely on anybody for financial support. But, who can ignore the stroke of kismet? Just a few days after my visit I received the news of his wife's sudden death. It was later discovered that she always knew she had been suffering from a rare heart disease and that something could happen to her anytime. This fact was too devastating for my friend to handle. He cried this time and he cried a lot for days. Yet at the same time he was trying really hard to support his little girl who couldn't figure out anything at all.
I started writing this post just a few minutes after Rum left. Today he came to my cell after years to see how I have been keeping. He is now an established businessman who has lost his everything save capitals. I know this as I have read about him in the local newspapers. Surprisingly, this third time he seemed to maintain an air of dignity even while he was telling me how tragically he had to let go of his last hope.