For most of us August 4th was three days after a defeat to Bayern Munich in a Friendly Cup Final, the Audi Cup in Munich. Just over 5,000 miles away a friend of mine, and fellow City fan posted this on Facebook,
‘Our dearest son Robert who was living and working in Guangzhou China sadly died last Friday at 28 years of age. We have been in China since last Tuesday trying to bring him home. However things move very slowly here and we have no idea yet when we can bring him home‘.
It certainly brought home to me how precious life is. A parent should never have to go through losing a child. That is not how it should be and is tragic enough in any circumstance, but imagine having to go to another country to recover your sons body, to China. The red tape to get through and effort needed by this family in a time which should be meant for mourning is something no one should ever have to go through.
Through the Facebook posts you will see a glimpse, but not everything, this family has had to go through just to get their boy back home, and to date it is still not yet completed. There is a page for donations in memory of Rob and hopefully after reading this you may want to visit the page, make a donation and help in some small way. Click here to donate.
Aug 7th: We are on the move tomorrow with Rob, but only as far as Hong Kong where there will be more bureaucracy which apparently will take 3-4 working days, so probably next Tuesday at the earliest before we can look at coming home. It's making the nightmare even worse, if that is possible.
At this point the British Consulate were helping where they could but their hands were tied when it came to the Counties legal system.
Aug 8th: Just arrived in Hong Kong 8 hours after we left the first hotel. More form filling at the funeral home before we could leave, then a four drive to the border, more form filling, then to the funeral home in Hong Kong, then finally to our hotel.
Aug 10th: Looks like we have a flight provisionally booked midnight Tuesday local time 12 hours into Heathrow for 5 am Wednesday.
Aug 13th: (Day Of Flight) we are waiting at the hotel for info about the movement of Typhoon Utor. It's still moving towards us and could result in the flight being cancelled.
The Typhoon was going to be a big one, so much so that the roof top pool in the hotel moved all their chairs and sun loungers INTO the water to stop them blowing away. It wasn’t looking good but then an update:
Looks like we are going to make it. The weather has eased off, they have checked us in and we are now in the lounge at Hong Kong airport. Only the small matter of a 12 hour flight followed by a four hour road journey between us and home.
The family are now home, but as I said at the beginning of the page this is not the end, there is still more stuff for the family to go through. I have only written the outlines of what this family had to go through in order to reclaim their child’s body, and I am sure no words could do justice to the emotions and frustrations felt during that time.
There is a page set up for donations in honour of their son for the ‘Help for Heroes’ Charity. Although he never actually served in the Armed Forces the charity was chosen as it was their son’s favourite. It is easy to donate and your information is safe and not sold to third parties.
Please click the link here: Rob’s Page.
Thank You for your time in reading this and in advance for any donations you make.
www.facebook.com/bobbard
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