Over Tehran

Just over half way on MH0004 from KL to London.  Two clocks running in my head; 7pm Malaysian time and; 11am UK time.  The window blinds are all down and the cabin is dark.  My knee is throbbing and I’ve got a developing toothache.  Feeling sad and anxious about what I might find when I finally get to Lincoln.  I tried to speak to Dad on the ‘phone from hospital last night (Malaysian time) and could barely hear a word through the wheezing of his chest.

“Pneumonia” the Staff Nurse says, which they’re watching very carefully.  I thank her and follow my gut and buy a ticket on this morning’s flight.  As soon as the word ‘”pneumomnia” is out I remember that a friend who is a nurse once told me that it is known to clinicians as “the old man’s comforter” – a way to quietly slip off if one has a mind.  Dad has already made it clear that he wants to be treated as a “DNR” (do not rescuscitate) case, but I have no idea if this is in his mind.

I was looking forward to my last three weeks in Miri, then a few days in Kathmandu before going back home to Puglia.  Now my plans are uncertain and will be dictated by what I find back in the UK.  Quite possibly Dad will be sat up in bed when I get there, bemused that I have travelled so far so quickly and I will feel strangely wrong-footed, something that death is fond of doing to us.  You prepare for the worst and then the loved one stages a little recovery only for death to give them a sudden kick in the teeth further down the road.

My mind is filled with images of death.  I’m on an identical Malayasian Airlines plane to the one that disappeared en route to China and the other that was shot down over Ukraine – a country we are now approaching.   In my daydreams I see human debris scattered over wheatfields and the vapour trails of surface-to-air missiles, juxtaposed with funeral orations for Dad.   I’ll be glad to get out of this limbo and back on the ground where they will be hard realities to deal with, maybe.