Went to a wake tonight for May San's sister, Jennifer. She was 60, and had terminal colon cancer. There were no symptoms, May San says. The disease was discovered during a routine health screening which she herself conducted six months ago.

The pastor who gave the homily at the Lady of Lourdes Parlour of Repose told us that one in five people would die of colon cancer. Isn't that frightening, she asked? I wanted to tell her that one in one person would die, fullstop. Isn't that frightening?

As she droned on about the wonderful knowledge they all that death was not the end, I couldn't help wondering why funeral sermons skirt around the horror and tragedy of death. A woman finds out she is ill in January and she can't even make it to Christmas. In the lives of her husband and children, there is now a hole, a huge void that will never be filled. They won't hear her voice again, be able to tell her about their day, or make plans for holidays together. Never. She is gone forever.

It is comfort to think that this is not the end, that there is another life beyond. Perhaps. But the homily skipped past the gut wrenching pain so glibly that I wondered where the grieving could find some solace.

I'm sure everyone went home picturing their own demise. I surely did. Death must be the worst thing anyone ever has to face so the only way to go on living is to pretend it isn't looming.

Mo and I had dinner afterwards at Straits Kitchen, where I had a decent glass of sauvignon blanc before heading home. The funeral wake in our void deck was still there. Isabel slept in our bed tonight. The thought of having a dead body just below our flat creeped her out, she said.