Sun Ling Photo: Courtesy of Sun Ling

In early March, the state of the COVID-19 epidemic in China was already improving, but the state of Sun Ling's father, who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, was growing increasingly severe. Deciding she didn't want to have any regrets, Sun, a young woman who works as a senior software engineer in New York, set forth on a 42-hour trip from New York in the US to her home in Loudi city, Central China's Hunan Province so she could see her father's face one more time before he passed. 

"My mom and my brother sent me messages telling me to return home immediately on March 1. I realized then that my father's condition was becoming more aggravated. I needed to go home," Sun told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Long journey



After a week spent applying for family and medical leave with her company, booking tickets and worrying about the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world, Sun finally boarded the flight that would take her from New York to Hong Kong and then on to Beijing on March 7.

"People in New York didn't seem to be taking things seriously on the day I left. I did not see anyone wearing face masks on the streets nor on the subway on my way to the airport, and only a few people wore face masks on the flight from New York to Hong Kong," Sun said.

Sun said she felt lucky to not have been the target of any racist attacks in New York, and she felt grateful that her friends in the city cared about her and her father, but they avoided talking about the pandemic since it would bring down the mood whenever they got together.

After a 16-hour flight, Sun arrived in Hong Kong. No one collected the health declaration card she had written on the plane since she was transferring directly to a plane to Beijing. 

"Everyone wore a mask on the flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. I submitted my health declaration card at the epidemic checkpoint after arriving in Beijing. Some staff came to check my information on the card very carefully and asked me some questions about things such as my flight itinerary, the self-service channel I had passed through and the shuttle bus that drove me to the terminal," she said.

According to Sun, during the flight from Beijing to Changsha, Hunan Province, those passengers who were flying from Iran, European countries and the US like herself were seated in the back of the plane to better quarantine them from domestic travelers. After landing in Changsha, Sun said she filled out another online form on her phone by scanning a barcode and the staff printed the form to check her information again and told her she would have to be quarantined at home.

"I could feel that China has done a great job when it comes to epidemic prevention, an area in which the US government cannot compare. My family picked me up at the airport and we drove three hours to home. This was a super long journey, I spent 42 hours going home," Sun said, sighing.

Broken heart

Sun said that throughout her journey her family was constantly asking for her location since her father, who was getting hospice care at home, was expecting her to arrive soon. 

"My brother told me our father might die soon. He was having difficulty breathing and needed a ventilator. I did not want him to have any regrets, so I wiped my tears away and entered his room."

Sun said she immediately felt heart-broken and helpless when she saw how much pain he was suffering from the cancer. 

"I saw his eyes filled with despair and pain. The doctor told us it was useless to continue treating him. I think the pain he suffered at that last stage was much more than all the pain he suffered before he was diagnosed with cancer. Sometimes he cried out from the unendurable pain, but there was nothing I could do except sit there and accompany him," Sun recalled.

In the early morning of March 12, Sun's dad had to keep his mouth open to breathe. At this point he couldn't respond to his family's questions anymore. By 8:47 am, he was gone. 

"I know it was unavoidable, but I still can't believe that he just left me. He was only 53 years old," she said.

Quarantine life

During the three days she accompanied her father, Sun kept receiving calls from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the leaders of the village to check up on her health. They also asked for a list of all the people she had contact with at home, which made her decide to go to the local health center and get a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) to test for coronavirus.

Although the staff at the airport told her to quarantine at home, Sun worried about the safety of her family. At the suggestion of the health center, Sun finally decided to go to a designated hotel for group quarantine.

"I was only able to bow before my dad three times before I left home. At 5 pm on March 12, I started my life in group quarantine. Too many things had happened over the past few days. When I arrived at the hotel, I turned on all the lights and didn't want to do anything," Sun said.

However, this dark time did not crush Sun. She quickly adjusted to her new situation by the following day and started to reply to the messages of support and sympathy from her friends. 

"I knew I had to face it and accept it bravely," she said.

During her time in quarantine, Sun began chatting with some new people on Wechat and TikTok. She found these chats quite productive and positive. 

"They told me working at home was saving them a lot of time from commuting and that they had more time to spend with their family, which made me see the bright side of quarantine."

Sun finally completed her 14-day-long quarantine on Monday afternoon after another NAAT test and a chest radiograph showed she was fine.

Since she is now forbidden to return to the US due to the travel ban, Sun has decided to stay at home and accompany her family for a while.

After her father's passing and the long quarantine period, Sun says she has come to understand the fragility of life. This new realization has inspired her to take advantage of her current good health to do more with her life.

"The secret of always being positive is accepting the truth, and laugh when you are down. No matter if it is a fake or a real laugh, in the end, you can face life with courage," she said.