We may need to cancel

 Unrelated to all of that, Sarah’s mum has been stuck in Australia for over two years. As I’ve mentioned in the past, she lives in Bangladesh, running a Christian Missionary School, that she and her husband set up many years ago. 

Since he passed a few years ago, she would come down to Australia for a few weeks every year, to stay with Sarah’s brother and her family. 

This time she arrived in Australia just before COVID did, so borders slammed shut behind her. By the time borders were opening again, she was desperate to get back to her home and to the people she was missing. 

She started traveling in October, accompanied by Sarah’s brother, Sam. Traditionally, she would always stop in Bangkok for a few days to rest, either coming or going. This was always necessary, because traveling has became problematic for her health over the last few years. She had also used this stopover to check in with her medical specialists, who tracked her health through the years.

This time, she had developed the early stages of pneumonia in Sydney, but did not want to delay her trip so didn’t mention it. By the time she arrived in Bangkok it had progressed. When Sam realized the severity, he had her admitted into the hospital that she regularly visited.

For some days, it looked like she would be up and about any day now, but that never happened. Sunita went over from Singapore to give Sam a break from his vigil.

For a time, there was discussion of spending some recovery time in Thailand before going home to Bangladesh. This would have overlapped with our holiday, so Sunita would have cancelled to be with her mum. Sarah would have cancelled the whole thing and gone there too.

When it started to become clear that there may not be a positive outcome, the calls with Sarah increased. She was asked to go over and see her.

At the time that her dad passed, Sarah had decided that she would not visit him either on his deathbed, or after. She had clear memories of him alive and well, and would not tarnish them with hospital memories involving tubes and cables in uncomfortable places. So she didn’t go until after her dad died, and preparations were under way to repatriate him to Dhaka for burial. Coincidentally, he also died in Bangkok. He had been airlifted from a Dhaka hospital to Bangkok, but had died in transit.

Sarah made the same decision about her mum. She has wonderful memories of being with or talking with her mum, and didn’t want to add any traumatic memories.

So on November 13th, Sarah’s mum passed away, and we began preparing to travel, first to Bangkok and then to Dhaka for her funeral.

When her dad died, it only took a few days to arrange to return his body to be buried at their Dhaka compound.

With her mum, it took 12 days before she could be repatriated. COVID certainly added some beurocratic hurdles. It didn’t help that they were Indian nationals on religious visas in a Muslim country.