My heart goes out to the people in Nepal who are suffering from yet another round of earth quakes. This story reaches out to your soul and is very well written by Moni Basu in Nepal and Wayne Drash in Atlanta for CNN.
From the Buddhist temple high on a hill above Kathmandu, Eric Poppleton surveys the Himalayan foothills. In the valley below is the city where his Nepal adventure began. Now, parts of it are in ruin. As are the lives of people who mattered most to him.
He braces himself for the cremation ceremony that is about to begin; he tries to keep the tears from flowing but fails. His only comfort is a conviction that he is doing the right thing.
He picks up a white silk khata, a traditional Buddhist ceremonial scarf, and drapes it over the broken body of his friend, Tom Taplin. He lights candles and incense as the priests begin their drone-like chants. Eric sits cross-legged on the floor, hypnotized by the smells and sounds.
Just a few days earlier, he and Tom stood at the base camp of Mount Everest together, feasting their eyes on nature’s majesty. The longtime friends and filmmakers had laughed and talked about the documentary they were producing on the history and culture of the small tent city from where brave souls scale the treacherous mountain.