Life
Bringing home the folks – dead or alive...
Going on holiday with my parents but without travel insurance nearly cost me very dearly indeed
August 31, 2025 19:43
Going on holiday with my parents but without travel insurance nearly cost me very dearly indeed
August 31, 2025 19:43I have come to the regretful realisation of late that I will never achieve my full potential in life. I will never have been, for example, an Olympian – at least if you don’t count the time I played an Argentinian Olympian in Victoria Wood’s Mid Life Christmas 2009. Nor will I ever be a great artist. Unless that evil art teacher at the evening classes was only mocking and laughing at me out of jealousy, and pretending she couldn’t understand what I’d drawn.
Most sadly I’m beginning to doubt I will ever become an actual spy or criminal mastermind. Earlier this year, when I went on holiday for Pesach with my elderly parents, they asked me to sort out their travel insurance. I checked out all the comparison sites looking for the cheapest policy, regardless of how good it was. Anything would do, I thought, so long as I could get cover for them. However, the policies were so exorbitant that my mother decided she and my father would take a chance and go to Croatia uninsured, leaving it in the hands of God. Yes, it may be considered reckless, but it’s not illegal. Leaving it in the hands of God turned out not to be such a clever idea. Just a couple of days into the holiday my mother began to feel unwell. More unwell than usual. My dad started to become quite confused. More confused than usual: he would perform his family-famous disappearing act daily. Both of them began to spend more and more time in their hotel beds.
This went on for some days, getting worse all the time. My children and I kept taking food up to them and trying to coax them down. We’d taken two wheelchairs out there with us. My mother relies on a wheelchair anyway but the second wheelchair, for my father, was really just for the airports. Having experienced very frustrating “special assistance” support in airports before, we’d decided to take our own chairs.
As the chag went on, my parents got weaker and frailer. It suddenly struck me they could actually die
As the chag went on, my parents got weaker and frailer. They were barely eating and clearly dehydrated. It suddenly struck me they could actually die. Clearly this was a very disturbing and distressing thought. Here we were on a big family holiday for Pesach and the whole “let’s leave it in God’s hands” idea was beginning to look a bit flawed. Then it struck me that they didn’t have any insurance. And then it struck me that I could have a huge problem.
As the days dragged by my parents faded and my panic grew. I wondered what we would do if we had to repatriate both their bodies. They liked Croatia but I didn’t think they’d want to stay there for eternity.
It was then I remembered all the stories I’d read about people trying to get dead people through customs and immigration points as if they were alive. I used to laugh my head off at those stories but now I began to understand the desperation that must have motivated such meshuggeners. Furtively, I started to read up on past cases of people taking dead relatives through airports pretending they were alive. I was focusing particularly on how those poor relatives had been caught out.
Clearly, even if the deceased was wearing sunglasses and a face mask and you told the border officials that your parents were having a nice little nap – a schluf – it seemed from what I read the airport staff would most probably insist on making them speak. It was here I was sure I hatched my most genius criminal mastermind plan. We would all wear face masks! I already knew I wasn’t very good at ventriloquism as I have tried it many times but I am good at doing voices, especially my mother’s. For my dad’s voice I was going to try and rope in my ten-year-old nephew. My dad hardly ever speaks anyway, so who’s to say he doesn’t sound like a child?
As for me doing my mother’s voice, I kind of oddly started looking forward to it. Over my life I have perfected imitating my mother’s accent and her sayings. Sometimes, like when I started saying “lol”, I even forget I’m doing it ironically.
Luckily, my parents both rallied enough to make the journey home without me having to pretend they were alive. As soon as they were hoisted onto the plane I let out the hugest sigh of relief ever. Although if I’m going to be strictly honest with you, I will always wonder if I could actually have got away with all the brazen lying, face masks and a bit of ventriloquy. And I don’t want you to think this was my first plan; that had been to just run away. Fast. Like an Argentininian Olympian. I’m sure I could have won a medal.
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