The woman had not seen her husband for a while.
But she didn't expect him to change so much in just five days.
His skin was dry, leathery, crinkled.
One part of his skull was sunken like a quashed can of beer.
And his eyeballs had dropped out of their sockets.
The woman, in her thirties, was a villager of Lalitpur, a community at the outskirts of Kathmandu.
And she had just seen her husband for the first time, five days after a
major quake struck Nepal, causing her house to crumble like the failed
Lego project of a child.
More than 50 officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force - and their
Thai and Malaysian counterparts - had worked through the rubble to help
locate and free the body of her husband.
After a three-hour operation, it took the woman all of 10 seconds to identify her husband.
How does one react, seeing the decomposed body of one's companion?
For this woman, it was just silence.
No tears. No wailing. No drama.
She walked out of the human ring - formed by the linking arms of
Nepalese officers to shield the body from onlookers - towards the arms of her
sombre-looking relatives.
Then, she began to pound her chest with her right
hand.
Slowly at first.
And then, the pounding got harder and faster.
All this while, she wore no expression.
Her breathing quickened as she stared into the distance, her eyes empty.
This was the most heart-breaking scene I had to witness, in my seven days in Nepal, covering the devastation.
Yet, when friends ask me how my stint in the quake-hit country was, my answer is easily this:
I was prepared to see the worst of Nepal but I ended up seeing the best of it, through its people.
On one occasion, while sitting in a small eatery in Gokarna, a village some 10km from Kathmandu airport, a heavyset Nepalese came by to make small talk with me and some members of the Singapore Contingent.
Minutes later, he set a large bottle of Pepsi Cola on our table.
In halting English, he said to us: "I am so happy you come so far to my country to help my people. Please. My treat. I want to thank you."
Such warmth isn't limited only to the adults.
My favourite memory is of a group of kids in Gokarna - whose age ranged between about three and 14 - milling around me and my camera crew as we entered their community.
The SAF medical team had chosen the Gokarna temple as a site for its mobile clinic.
The temple was a familiar gathering point for many of the locals.
One 11-year-old girl, who was playing at the temple grounds, and who spoke the best English among her friends, took it upon herself to investigate me.
Where are you from? What's your name? How old are you? Do you speak Nepalese? What is this for?
Little Miss Curious also wore the hat of Goodwill Ambassador.
"This one is Newari," she said with a beam, pointing at a girl with hair the colour of hay, and large eyes of the same shade.
"This one is Rai," she went on, pointing to a petite boy with dark skin and almond-shaped eyes.
Then she turned to me and decided for me - with a giggle - that "you are Sherpa".
I watched as she and her friends prance around me and my equipment one moment, and hop merrily from one pillar to another, the next.
The kids laughed easily.
And when I handed them biscuits from my bag, they took them excitedly but shared the goodies readily with their friends.
It's no wonder these happy little ones grow up to be the Nepalese whose big hearts and warmth touched so many of us, while we were there.
Even in Lalitpur - the village of the woman whose husband was crushed to death when his house fell on him - people were overtly kind despite the tragedy.
My crew and I had decided to head for the rooftop of a building right opposite the collapsed house.
The Nepalese made way for us and gave us space, so that we could film the rubble from that vantage point.
And while we were sending footage back, one woman and her son approached us with trays filled with cups of hot tea and biscuits.
They even trusted us and allowed us into their homes so that we could charge our gear using their precious electricity.
I must admit that my short stint in Nepal did not allow me to feel the full implications of the quake.
I had not travelled to the epicentre to see devastation that would be the visual backdrop against Nepal's climbing death toll.
Nor did I experience numerous aftershocks and landslides.
Or speak to locals to get a sense of how they go about rebuilding their lives.
I know I had done my best during my assignment in Nepal, but I also feel there is more I could do, as a journalist.
Crafting sentences to tell peoples' stories is supposed to be my forte.
And asking questions to bring out peoples' emotions is also supposed to be what I'm good at.
But that day, as I watched the woman in Lalitpur grieve in her quiet way, words failed me.
I merely stood by her side and said nothing, except looked her in the eye with my hand on her shoulder.
Just for that moment, I forgot how to be a journalist.
So I did my job as a person.
