I'm writing this in an ICU where someone who had been sick for the last month just passed away.  She lies  there with her hands clasped, quite still, as the warmth of her body gradually escapes her and rigormortis slowly seeps into her bones.  Once she was a living, talking, eating human being.  Now, she is as lifeless as the bed she's lying on.

Why this dwelling on death, I hear you think.  It's morbid, no?  I beg to differ.  Death is very much a part of life - and increasingly part of my social agenda.  In the last couple of weeks I've attended a few funerals of people of varying ages (most didn't even make it to the average national life expectancy age) who died of various, though predictable, illnesses and with varying degrees of pain and suffering.

In these instances one feels sad, particularly for the loved ones left behind.  For the departed, it is said that one must not show too much sorrow or shed too many tears as it would be painful for the soul to leave to their next destination with so much emotion holding them back.  Instead one must accept their passing with stoic resignation as when it comes to death, it is supposedly in the hands of the Almighty.  One does not know when the Grim Reaper will come and cut our mortal coil.  When he does, all our plans, our thoughts of tomorrow and the woes of this planet are swept away like sandcastles at high tide.