Forever Goodbye 30 May

*A replacement post for 30 May 2013

It was an extremely sad day for my whole family. Dad passed away in a sudden.

I received a call from my sister who stay in outstation. I got to know dad fainted at home. I called back home immediately. My little niece asked me to rescue dad. I knew that was something bad happened. Quickly, I fetched my big sister and rushed back home. My sister was trying to call cousin for help and kept update from him. On the home journey, I got to know dad was sent to the hospital by ambulance. I felt relief a bit as there was still hope if dad was taken to the hospital. I dropped my sister in the emergency section while I looked for parking. I parked quite far away. Sister called me and she didn't clearly tell me the status.

When I reached the emergency area, I was being told dad didn't make it. I just had no feeling at the moment. Dad was lifeless on the bed. Those equipment were still not dismantled. It seemed like dad had a shock on his face. I touched his hand and body. He was no longer moving. This was my last touch on him. Dad was leaving us forever.

Mum told us the incident. She looked calm but I knew she had no preparation to react to all these. I thought she was like me, no feeling in such a sudden. It was a bit annoying at the moment as there were several people approach us for the death arrangement. Later, a young Chinese doctor asked me to report my dad's death as they wanted to settle my dad's body. Then I was accompanied by my uncle to lodge report to the police. Then a series of arrangement was going to be carried out.

Health history reporting was very much related to  the death investigation (postmortem) by police and insurance claim. It was contradict to Chinese culture that don't encourage postmortem. Finally we decided to allow for postmortem. I felt we needed the answer for dad's death even though we managed to guess the reason. We spent for quite some time to discuss with the paediatric pathologis and sergeant in the dead body placement area on the postmortem issue. We discussed on the cremation/burial with relatives as well.

After that, we went to settle and arrange the casket and attire matters separately while waiting for the postmortem. After the postmortem, there were a lot of procedures on transporting the body back home. Body claiming, attire changing, casket entering (dry ice), calling dad for home when passing bridges and etc...... I saw some scars of postmortem during the buttons buckling session. Hope everything was fine.

Relatives were coming to support throughout the night. It was really exhausted. Sad......