Families of Flight 370 still grieving
Plane was lost 10 years ago
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Over the past decade, Grace Subathirai Nathan graduated from law school, got married, opened a law firm, and had two babies. But part of her is frozen in time, still in denial over the loss of her mother on a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in 2014.
There has been no funeral service, and Grace, 35, still speaks of her mother in the present tense. When she got married in 2020, she walked down the aisle with a picture of her mother tucked in a bouquet of daisies — chosen because of her mother’s name, Anne Catherine Daisy.
The Malaysian criminal lawyer has become one of the key faces of Voice 370, a next-of-kin support group, as she channeled her grief into keeping alive the quest for answers in the disappearance of MH370 that has ripped families apart.
“In terms of going on, I progressed in my career, in my family life ... but I am still trying to push for the search of MH370 to continue. I am trying to push for the plane to be found, so in that way, I haven’t moved on,” Grace said in an interview. “Logically, in my brain, I know I am probably never going to see her again, but I haven’t been able to accept that fully, and I think emotionally, there’s a gap that hasn’t been bridged due to the lack of closure.”
The baffling disappearance of Flight 370 still captivates people. The Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on March 8, 2014, but dropped off radar screens shortly after and never made it to Beijing, its destination. Investigators say someone deliberately shut down the plane’s communications system and took the plane off course.
The jet is believed to have plunged into a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean based on satellite data, but a massive search was fruitless. No wreckage or bodies have ever been found except for fragments that washed ashore on the African coast and Indian Ocean islands.
Families of those on board, many from China, have found different ways to cope with the grief, but one thing is constant — their mission for justice and answers. The pain still torments some families who are skeptical of theories of the plane’s fate and hang on to hope that their loved ones may return.
Like Grace, Chinese farmer Li Eryou also has not held a funeral or memorial service for his only son.
He has a board at home on which he counts each passing day since MH370 disappeared. Li Yanlin, 27, had a promising career as an engineer with a telecommunications company that was cut short.
The pain comes easily, triggered by a sound, an object, even a flower, Li said.
“All these years, I’ve been drifting along in life like a ghost,” Li said in an interview in China’s Handan city. “When I meet my friends and relatives, I have to put on a smile. At night, I can become true to myself. When all is quiet in the dead of night, I weep without people knowing.”
Li recently moved to stay with his daughter due to poor health. At his former residence, newspaper clippings of the missing aircraft that have yellowed with age still hang on the wall and his son’s room is kept largely untouched.
“I believe my son is still on the flight, that he’s still around. Or he is living on a remote island like Robinson Crusoe,” Li said, in a reference to his son’s favorite book.
Li and his wife seldom travel but have made multiple trips to Malaysia to seek answers and to Madagascar, where parts of the aircraft have washed up on beaches. The lack of answers merely deepens their agony.
They are among about 40 Chinese families that have rejected a small compassion payment from the airline. They have sued five entities, including Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, and aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce, seeking larger compensation and answers to who should be held accountable. Court hearings started in Beijing in November, and a verdict could take months.
On the 100th day after the flight vanished, Li penned his first poem expressing his longing for his son. Since then, he has written about 2,000 that have helped him cope with the grief.
“I wrote down my feelings. The only reason I could survive all these years is because of these words,” Li said.
There is now new hope for closure. During a remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday, Malaysia’s government said it will consider a proposal for a new search by US marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity.