More blurry days in GZ

9th of June seems to be the longest day that I knew in a long time, from midnight, after receiving the news of my dad's discomforts; to knowing that he's hospitalised and being resuscitated; to trying to figure out the route from HK to GZ; to taking the long long plane ride & bus ride to GZ; to seeing mum and settling her for a rest; to seeing my sis & brother-in-law; to answering many critical phone calls; to identifying the important steps needed to be taken... It felt like an eternity when i woke up on sat morning.

I think there were some phone calls that I took throughout the day and night which I could hardly make out what the content was, I recall talking to Otterman while on the bus to GZ, he had the experience of losing his dad to a heart attack in a surprise situation very similar to mind. Recalling his account and the steps he took to minimise emotional damage to his family members gave me good reminders when I spoke to my sis constantly through the night on the early mornings of 9th June when we all lost our dads. At the same time, I also recall another good friend A, who lost his dad in Australia when his siblings took him out on a holiday. Suddenly, we had too much similarities and "bond" in a situation which no one would dream of.

I thank God for giving these two valuable friends to me, to allow me to learn from their experiences and take the necessary actions to prevent an eruption of guilt in my sister & her husband & mum. The first instant I got, I spoke to all three of them individually, assuring them that they've tried their best. When I sense that there were some unhappiness from my eldest bro, I quickly convinced him that they have all tried their best and talking about it/any amount of finger pointing will NOT help in the situation nor bring my dad back to life.

YES, the truth is, my dad will NEVER come back to life. So regardless of what's said to who, it can never reverse the situation. Its pointless to let those alive feel guilty for the rest of their lives. So to all those out there with the "How can you let it happen"-questions be it directed to my mum/sis/brother-in-law or even to the rest of us the immediate family. SHUT the F**K up, do you think that by asking these ridiculous questions would help anyone or anything? It just displays the immaturity of your mind and inability to spare the feelings of the immediate family members. Who in the world would grieve MORE than those who live with him, who will missing him daily at meal times, walks, newspaper reading, watching tv, discussing politics, watching a soccer game? If you have not even called or thought about my dad in the past week/month, I think it gave little to NO rights to even question the situation. IF you have cared about anyone, you would have made an effort to keep in touch. So save those fake crocodile tears, u can shaft them up your A**.

Sorry for the short interlude of "distracted" write-up. Back to more blurry days....

I was pretty upset on Sat afternoon, after the arrival of 2nd bro and Uncle Sunny, after the short discussion, they all departed for the funeral parlour while I was "left" behind in the hotel with mum. Not that I din want to spend time with mum to take care of her, but I thought that I was missing out the chance to see my dad. I flew all the way to GZ alone with the wish of seeing dad for the last time. I thought that I could still catch him with a bit of warmth left in his body. After missing him at the hospital, this felt like the earliest chance to see my dad. I was anxious to face him, I wanted to see my DADDY!!!

I felt so unfair that all got to see him before ME! Almost like I was less worthy then the rest of them. *bleah*

I quickly sent them an sms to tell them that I would like to stay behind all the way and go back home with dad. (even when it meant that I will be running out of clothes & undies, missing Ad for a even longer time)

Plan was to allow my sis, bro-in-law and mum to return to Singapore as planned (on monday night via HK), while Ad will book a one way tix for me to return together with 2nd bro and Uncle Sunny when all paperwork was confirmed and Eldest bro will exit on mon afternoon direct from GZ on his SQ tix. (I only found out that my eldest bro was going to GZ when I was in Terminal One at 6am in the morning of 9th June, he was in T2 trying to get a seat on SQ direct into GZ, when I got to the boarding area, then he's seat was confirmed, he almost had to spend S$2-3k on a biz class tix if not for a last min availability of the economy tix, which costs S$845)

Masterplan for manpower was done. Good.

Uncle Sunny saw that mum was still slightly shaky and made some calls. Wahlah, we've got an official vehicle that will bring the 3 of them out to HK. This official vehicle has dual car-plate which allows it to zip past GZ & HK customs smoothly. The "power" of this vehicle could be felt even at the hotel entrance. Located in a busy district, the hotel driveway is a one way route, allowing only ONE vehicle to be parked at the entrance at any one time. The vehicle arrive early on Sunday morning, it parked at the entrance for close to 20mins to wait for my folks to get ready, check out of their rooms etc and all this while, no one dares to honk at it for "obstructing the way" or walk up to them to drive away, even cab drivers had to reverse their way backwards to leave the hotel. Ha ha ha ha..... The "POWER" of having POWER in China, just 2 car plates will do the trick. Very curious how it looks like??? Here it is:

I cannot figure out what's the special indication on the plate about this car that distinguishes it from the tonnes of others. But I'm sure the locals already knew about it...

Sunday was a slow day as morning was spent on ensuring mum, sis & bro-in-law left GZ safely towards HK. We all decided that we should have a simple chanting session for dad on tues when his body was going into the coffin to be transported back to Singapore. Now these "services" were not provided by the funeral parlour folks (strange actually I thought...) Instead, we were directed to a few famous local temples to try our luck to locate a monk who could do such a special service. Basically, the chanting was to help my dad's spirit travel back with us to Singapore. It seems like it doesnt happen often in this part of the country and not many monks/temples provide such a service. Most monks do their prayer/chantings within the temple's premises. They do not go out.... Yikes. Time was running out. Good thing that the temples were located close to one another, so we went "monk-hunting" and we got lucky, after much persuasion and sounding pretty desperate, the monk from one of the temples agreed to help us. But he'll send his fellow-peer as he was occupied on tues afternoon... Strangely, after making the verbal "booking" with him on the spot, he still asked us to call him at 5pm that evening to confirm....

Erhm, we kinda slept in the evening after feeling totally relieved that we can find a monk and forgot to call him until 8pm that night!!! ARGHHH.... imagine losing him just because of this??? But I cannot understand why need another confirmation leh? Good thing he answered his call at 8pm and gave the number of another monk who is available at our specific time. We tried calling this new monk and there was no pick up!!! *panic*

We quickly alerted our lady relative who's native in GZ and updated her on the situation, with her resourcefulness, she managed to confirm confirm the new monk for the service and offered to personally pick him up and send him to the funeral parlour to do the chanting. Woah, she's good!

Another concern was what will happen to mum when she's in HK from sunday till monday night when she flies back to Singapore?? She'll be tired, yet restless with so much that has happened. Luckily, we've got an aunt (sister to my dad) who lives in HK with her hubby and kids, she was informed of the situation and was staying put in HK to take care of my mum instead of rushing over to GZ and exhausting the manpower. At least we got fresh resources along the way, to reduce the strain on my sis and bro-in-law. Uncle G (husband to aunt) even gave my sis a local phone card to be used so that she can communicate with us (in GZ) at a cheaper rate. Thanks Uncle G. I constantly checked on mum through my sis and even called her a various times to access her emotions through listening to her voice.

On a separate trip to taipei with Ad, we met a cousin who was very close to mum. Recalling that I've got his mobile number, I quickly sent him information on our situation and gave him contact numbers to my sis's new HK number to allow him to talk to mum. He volunteered to pick mum up from Changi Airport on monday late night which I figured would be a good tranquilzer for her instead of just Ad & J (who drove Ad around those few days to get information, settle paperworks etc. Thank YOU J!). Cousin CN was the best person to talk to mum, he just needs 1 sentence, she'll calm down instantly, verses the few thousand words that I say to her, wont help.... Its strange how theses cycles works, there's one person for everyone of us whom we'll just fully trust and "obey" while all others will always forever remain as insignificant "noises". I think being able to locate cousin CN was one of the best choices I made, he spent some time talking to her accessing her condition and helped her to focus on what lies ahead. I'm glad he was around to stablise mum.

The greatest concern I had was how mum would feel when she gets back to Singapore, being a familiar place, she'll be overwhelmed with too much emotions. It was important to settle her down and allow her to get good quality rest. She spent the night in 2nd bro's house which we all felt was the best solution as she had her grand-daugther to play with, her daughter-in-law and their domestic helper to keep an eye on her. Ad also found notes on signs and symptoms of stroke and ensure that this information was passed onto to both of them. After seeing that mum settled down and got ready for bed, Ad left 2nd bro's house and returned home TIRED from 3 days of running around non-stop..... Thank you DEAR.

On the other hand, monday for us in GZ was madness. Early in the morning, we were told that the date of birth particulars filled on the death certificate was different from that of the passport! WAH! That could mean serious delay in the processing of the paperworks. We were told that all the paperwork must be completed by 4pm that day to ensure that the airline will award the airway bill to load the "cargo". So the time frame to get the DOB sorted was very short (in China context as their system works differently or in our short-tempered terms..... S.L.O.W.L.Y) We arrive at the hospital at 10am to double-check what's needed to be done. It'll cost too much time to get the DC re-issued, so instead, they got the official to correct the error and re-stamp on the same cert again. That took us 1hr+. It was almost 11am, we have to head to the bank to change our Singaporean currency into RMB so that we can pay the "transport" agent on tuesday after he process all the paperwork.

At the same time, while we were in the hospital, I went off with our lady relative to look for her friend in the documents storage dept to attempt to get a copy of my dad's medical records during his stay in the hospital. In frenzy on friday, my sis did not get the doc's report nor any transcripts, so we have to do this today. Good thing that this lady relative knew some people working in that hospital, while her friend was not at the desk, she made arrangements for us to obtain the records from her co-workers in the relevant department. We went to look for him instantly and approached him humbly for his help, he quickly sprung into actions, checking his digital records if the medical notes has arrived at his super computer. Nope, not so fast he said.... strange, the A&E folks claimed that they've submitted the documents, that's why we came UP in the first place, now the UPstairs folks claimed that it was still downstairs.... *SIGH* this signaled another waiting game....

He asked if I had any documents to prove my association with dad and a prove of my identity as well. Luckily, in my 5am attempt to leave home, I brought along copies of my birth cert (which states my dad's name and NRIC number) and also a copy of my passport. He was glad that he did not have to do "extra" work to copy these two items when I handed him my printed copies. I guess that helped to sweeten the deal abit. I was glad that my BC came to good use. We were uncertain how long the waiting game would be at the Upstairs office.... so our lady relative volunteered to wait on our behalf while we (2nd bro, Uncle Sunny and hometown relative) would go ahead to the funeral parlour to pay for the room; change our foreign currency; meet our MFA officer to get the money which we TT-ed. Yep, there was alot of errands to run within a day.

It felt like I was in GZ for an eternity already. Only two more nights before I go back to Singapore. I never felt so home-sick before. Perhaps it was knowing that I've got a bigger safety net in Singapore. I wont have to depend on others/expensive mobile charges on sms/phone calls to keep me sane....

family jen travel