Reporter’s Pocket book: My father would have laughed at the irony

Michael Brown was the motive I went into journalism. And it was his death that led on to the most essential, and painful, task I have ever undertaken.

It started on Friday March 13, when his body all of the sudden started to close down little by little. He was 91 and had been battling dementia for nearly a decade. 

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I used to be on my method to the airport after I obtained the name from my sister. He had handed away simply minutes earlier. If I had left a day earlier I would have been there for the ending. As an alternative I missed the deadline his body had set for him.

He handed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, March 15 – the Ides of March, a portent of doom in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. 

The 13-hour flight from Hong Kong to London would supply loads of time for silent reflection. I sat numb, unable to cry or suppose. 

The backdrop for his death might hardly be worse. I had spent the past few weeks reporting on the coronavirus outbreak. Now it had unfold to England. The family home is in London, by now the worst affected a part of the nation. 

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However quite than mourn my father I started to grasp there was a better crucial. I needed to get my mom out of England. At 86, recovering from most cancers, she is extraordinarily susceptible to this illness. But if she remained in London she confronted the prospect of as much as three months’ self-isolation in an residence the place she had watched my father’s gradual psychological disintegration. I didn’t need her to endure but more torment. 

But I had arrived in London anticipating to remain longer. I knew from my mom that there was an acute scarcity of face masks and sanitiser, simply as there had been in Hong Kong a couple of weeks earlier.

As my sister and I attended to the insensitive administration of death, we have been concurrently reserving flights to Hong Kong. However confirmations evaporated as ever more flights have been cancelled.

Our third reserving, although, held. London-Doha-Hong Kong.

I knew we had the narrowest of home windows to get out. However nothing might occur till we had a death certificates for my father. That lastly occurred on Wednesday, lower than 36 hours earlier than our flight departed. 

All my mom needed to do was mourn the man she had cherished for 66 years.

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Wrongly or rightly, I used to be taking her to the different side of the world on a journey inherent with danger. COVID-19, in any case, has contaminated airline passengers. 

My mom’s neighbour, who’s a physician, got here to supply condolences. In passing, she talked about she was being drafted to a hospital ward that’s particularly treating COVID-19 sufferers. She additionally confided that she was making ready to combat the virus with out an N95 face masks, which gives more safety than common, disposable ones. We handed her as a lot of my masks as we might spare, together with 5 N95s. That incident appeared to neatly sum up the National Well being Service’s state of preparedness.

It was a gray, damp morning when my mom and I took a cab to Heathrow airport.

Like so many different individuals, the driver wasn’t sporting a masks.

My sister was becoming a member of us. As British passport holders, my sister and mom can enter and keep in Hong Kong for six months with out a visa. However our window was narrowing. 

A day earlier, the Hong Kong authorities introduced that every one arrivals would have to do 14 days’ self-isolation at home, in resorts or authorities quarantine centres.

However the check-in employees have been confused. A death in the family is each distressing and nerve-racking, and the young girl behind the counter was about to make our day even worse.

She informed my mom and sister they would not be boarding the flight as a result of they weren’t Hong Kong residents. I sat my mom down, luggage piled beside her. She appeared damaged and forlorn. My escape plan was falling aside. She was born in the run-up to World Struggle II, and now in the final years of her life, she was going through dislocation once more.

Resignation was now spreading by way of my body. My sister wasn’t giving up, although. A supervisor was referred to as. Finally he accepted the regulation had been wrongly interpreted by his junior colleague. With an hour earlier than our flight left, we have been lastly handed our boarding passes. 

Throughout this public well being emergency your ears are attuned for sure sounds, like a persistent hacking cough. Like the cough coming from the seat one throughout from my mom. A form Chinese language student close to the again of the cabin agreed to swap seats. After a couple of blunt phrases from me, the coughing passenger reluctantly placed on his face masks. 

The chance of bringing my mom to Hong Kong was borne out by a cellphone name I obtained from my journey agent a couple of days later. There had been at least two contaminated passengers on our flight.

We at the moment are underneath 14 days of self-isolation in my small however comfy residence in a remote secluded corner of Hong Kong. We do twice-daily temperature checks and to date so good. 

However as I used to be penning this, the police paid a go to.

I have been noticed on the roof of my flat, which I’m informed is a breach of my quarantine rules. A vigilant however understandably involved neighbour raised the alarm. 

I level out the roof is a part of my property. They appear not sure and warn me to not go up once more.

Just a few hours later two well being employees sporting visor shields and white protecting clothes are at the entrance door with directions to maneuver the three of us to a authorities quarantine centre in Sha Tin.

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I clarify that we have already been self-isolating in my residence for 4 days. It is unclear why they need us to go away. In truth, they appear as bemused and confused as I’m.

I clarify we’re managing effective at home and that it would be greatest for my mom to stay the place she is. I additionally add that in a couple of hours’ time my father is being cremated on the different side of the world, and we have been planning to mark the second with a small ceremony.

By now my mom and sister are in tears. The nightmare that started 10 days earlier appears endless. 

A public well being emergency can deliver out the best and worst in individuals. On this disaster I have seen each.

The 2 well being employees make a cellphone name after which with out a phrase return to the avenue the place the van to take us to the centre is parked. The vehicle and its occupants stay there for 2 more hours. Throughout this time we’re left in limbo, not sure what the next minute will deliver. I name the Well being Division hotline to hunt clarification. It is busy … because it has been on the seven different events I have tried to name.  

We press on with the ceremony, figuring out one other knock on the door could also be imminent. 

On the eating room desk a small makeshift shrine has taken form. A photograph of father from his 80th birthday, a lit candle and two small bunches of roses and carnations left at the entrance door by his spouse earlier. 

At the precise second my father’s body was being positioned into the cremation chamber, my mom, sister and I held arms listening to the song that we had additionally requested be performed throughout the service: Convey me sunshine, by the former British comedy duo Morecambe and Clever.

The lyrics embrace the line “in this world where we live, there should be more happiness” – phrases that appear to mock these darkish times. 

Poignantly my sister has simply proven me a letter my father wrote to all three of his youngsters on March 25, 2004, precisely 16 years to the day that he was cremated. It begins, “this is a letter to all three of you – something I have never done before … and I probably won’t do another of these for a long time.” It is a letter of affection and thanks from a proud dad or mum.

I hope he thought I did the proper factor.

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