Coronavirus Qld: Sarah Caisip’s last conversation with her father
Sarah Caisip, whose denied bid to attend her father’s funeral sparked outrage, has revealed her emotional final conversation with him.
QLD News
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Sarah Caisip’s final conversation with her father before he died was delivering the devastating news she could not be with him for Father’s Day.
Ms Caisip – whose denied bid to attend her father Bernard Prendergast’s funeral in Brisbane sparked outrage when it was reported yesterday – has revealed the heartbreaking final words she shared with him.
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“Ten days after I had put through an exemption request, he called me to ask me what are the chances of me coming up to Queensland for Father’s Day weekend,” she said.
“That was when I broke the news to him that I was in the process of trying and had already put through an exemption and have not heard back.”
Ms Caisip said her family would now like to grieve in private, but she appreciated the outpouring of emotion across Australia after she was allowed at the last minute to view her father’s body, clad in personal protective equipment with no family beside her.
“I would just like to thank you for the whole nation’s support and overwhelming responses from everyone, especially from the Prime Minister,” she said.
Mother-in-law Sonya Dewar said Ms Caisip had been incredibly brave and her dad would have been very proud.
“We had actually given up hope in Sarah even going to the funeral to see her dad’s body and I said to Sarah ‘you have to keep talking because it might not help you but it might help the next family’,” Ms Dewar said.
“No one should have to fight like they’ve had to fight, and then go public for something that should be so private.”
She said Ms Caisip was now in contact with the family of Mark Keans, who are trying to travel to Queensland to say goodbye to him as he suffers from terminal cancer.
“I hope some common sense and compassion starts to be shown soon to these poor families,” she said.
Ms Dewar revealed that Sarah’s father had organised a video farewell to be emailed to Sarah just hours after he passed away.
“He passed away (on Wednesday night) and she said 8.30am on Thursday morning, she received an email from her father with a video saying goodbye,” she said. “It gives me goosebumps to think he had thought about this whole process and he’d gone to the effort to make this video.
“Sarah said maybe he knew and he asked the nurses to fire off these emails, I don’t know.”
A relative who attended Thursday’s funeral said it was difficult to know Sarah was allowed to say goodbye while a number of other family members interstate had been refused exemptions to funerals in Queensland in recent days.
Originally published as Coronavirus Qld: Sarah Caisip’s last conversation with her father