Paul Clark Wright, a 37-year-old telecoms worker, lives a five-minute walk from Whiston hospital in Merseyside – the hospital where his father died. “I can see it from my window,” he says. That was the hardest thing: being so close to the hospital where his beloved father was dying, but being unable to go there and hold his hand.
David Clark used to own a newsagent’s, but he retired for medical reasons in his 50s. “He was the most likable man you would ever meet,” says Paul. “His life revolved around me, my mum and my sister.”
If Paul ever needed a favour – say he had to go away for work unexpectedly and he needed someone to look after his dogs – his father would drop everything to accommodate him. Paul travels often for his job and he would always speak to his father from his trips. “He’d ring me and say: ‘Where are you today?’” Paul remembers. “I’d say: ‘Italy,’ or: ‘Germany,’ and fill him in about it.”
David rang his son every Saturday at 10am – which is when Paul goes to the gym. “I’d say: ‘Dad, I’m in the gym again,’ and he’d say: ‘I’m sorry! I forgot.’ It used to bug me. Now I wish he would bloody ring me every Saturday at 10am,” says Paul. David loved gardening and helped plant his son’s garden. “We filled the garden together,” he says. “Lavender, foxgloves, daisies.”
When Paul came out in his teens, David accepted his son’s sexuality easily. “He just got on with it,” he remembers. “I’d go to gay bars in Liverpool and bump into Mum and Dad there! I’d say: ‘What are you doing here?’ They’d say they wanted to come and have a look at what was going on. He was proud of it and wasn’t scared of telling anyone. He never wanted me to hide who I was.”
David had a kidney transplant 10 years ago and a heart bypass five years later. He had to take immunosuppressants to prevent his body rejecting the kidney. “He was not a well person, but, to look at him, he outwardly seemed well,” says Paul. “You wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with him.” In March, David was sent a shielding letter in the post. He sent Paul a photo of the letter and Paul told him to take Covid seriously.
David’s family does not know how he picked up Covid. He had been feeling under the weather for a few weeks before he received his shielding letter, so it is possible he had already contracted the virus by then. David was hospitalised on 29 March. When Paul spoke to his dad on the phone, after he had been admitted to A&E, he was scared. “He said: ‘They’re moving me to the Covid ward. I’ve got this bloody virus. I’m really scared. I don’t know what to do.’”
Paul reassured his father that everything would be OK. He reminded him that he had already endured a kidney transplant and a heart bypass. He had come out the other end, like he always did. “It was a role reversal,” says Paul. “I became the parent and he was the child. You never expect your parents to be vulnerable. You expect them to be the strong ones. But he’d been watching the news – he knew how bad Covid could be. He was really scared.”
At the hospital, David declined fast. Doctors deemed that he was not a good candidate for a ventilator, due to his underlying condition. “He stopped messaging us,” says Paul. “We kind of knew then.” On 9 April, in the early hours of the morning, David pressed his call button, complaining of back pain. A nurse fetched him a cushion and some medication. Nurses were checking on him every 15 minutes. In between slots, David died. He was alone. “I can’t explain how it felt,” says Paul of hearing the news. He could not drive past the hospital for weeks.
Since his father’s death, Paul has found it difficult to watch acquaintances griping about the government’s Covid restrictions online. “I have to stop myself commenting on people’s Facebook posts sometimes. People are whining about having to wear a mask and social distance,” he says. “I wish they would think about what other families have gone through.”
Paul still has the last text his father sent him, when he was in hospital. “He asked me what I’d been doing in the garden,” he says. Paul texted him back a photograph of a lavender plant he had just finished potting. His father never read the text, but the lavender is still going strong.
