Horror call, then relief: ‘Yes! He’s my father’
Lane Nichols
It was still dark when Deborah Pead received a terrifying early-morning call yesterday from New York to say her father had been missing for two days from a care home.
Her heart racing, Pead said the officer told her US authorities had been notified and they would be in touch when they had more news.
Choosing to become estranged from the family, her “reclusive dad” had not been heard from in nearly a decade. Showing signs of dementia, he had gone into a home.
As she frantically tried to decide what to do, Pead imagined the worst.
“All remaining sleep dissolved into the humidity smothering the Auckland night. What to do? Do I jump on a flight? Do I sit tight and wait?”
At that moment a second call sounded on her phone and her anguish turned to disbelief.
It was Auckland International Airport. “Do you know a Derek John Pead?” the caller asked. “Yes! He’s my father.” “Well he’s here at guest services, can you come and fetch him and make it quick — he’s causing a bit of a fuss.”
Pead snr had just flown more than 14,000km across the world, clutching little more than a paperback book and his US passport, because he missed his daughter, Pead told the Herald.
The surreal, movie-like tale played out yesterday morning and she posted about the adventure on Facebook last night.
“So the man who can hardly find his way to the communal dining room ‘ escaped’ from his home — hailed a cab to JFK, caught a flight to LA, bought a return ticket to NZ and landed in Auckland this morning. He was dressed for a New York winter and travelled light. A book he Deborah Pead purchased at the airport and his passport and wallet was all he had on him. He didn’t tell anyone because ‘there are too many rules at that place’.”
“But what made you do it?” she asked him after collecting him from the arrivals lounge.
“I was feeling sad and was missing you kiddo,” was his reply.
Overcome with emotion and still trying to make sense of it all, Pead — who owns Pead PR — spoke to the Herald last night from her Kaipara farm north of Auckland where her father was asleep, confused and recovering from jetlag.
It seemed he had wanted to reconnect with Pead and her brother, so had decided to finally come home.
“As you can imagine it’s very emotional right now. My dad is still full of jetlag and he’s very confused.
“All credit to the airline personnel that obviously supported him along the way. . . . Obviously someone took pity on him and gave him a first class goodie bag.
“He’s cut himself off from the family for all these years so if you’d told me he’d landed from Mars I couldn’t have been more surprised.
“Obviously a light or switch was flicked in his head and he just had to make his way to myself and my brother. No doubt tomorrow when he wakes up we’ll be able to unravel the story.”
Pead said her father was very fragile and very frail.
“I’m pretty astounded at how he’s aged. He’s an old man now.
“It’s a lovely story,” Pead said. “How many times does a story like that happen in your life? It’s just like a movie. It shows that real stories really do connect with people.”