LIFE MUST GO ON
Families of lost ones in the MH370 disaster still want answers and will always remember but they also want to move on, writes Charles Miranda
As the sixth anniversary of the MH370 tragedy comes around, Jeanette Maguire won’t be sad if all the members of her family don’t want to gather to mark the occasion. Ms Maguire’s sister and brother-inlaw Cathy and Bob Lawton were on the doomed flight and each year on the weekend closest to the anniversary date the large clan gather for “reflection and remembrance”.
“Maybe not this year but that is okay,” Ms Maguire said yesterday.
“We have not planned for the 8th, yet we’ll look at it closer to the time but it will depend on everyone’s emotions as well. We don’t pre-empt anything, we all know the day is there and is creeping up but we tend to wait closer to the time to see who wants to do something, get together or you don’t.”
Like other Australians who lost loved ones on the March 8, 2014 tragic flight, Ms Maguire says the memories never fade but a set particular day is not necessarily required to grieve together, — time has moved on and it can be done in private.
“In the beginning we were always together but as time is going by, people are trying to get back on with their lives and that healing process has to take place to some degree and you can’t say ‘well it’s the 8th of March and we all must be together’ . You’ve sort of gone from having everyone together nearly six years ago when we didn’t leave each other at all to now everyone’s making their own road, which I find is a very positive thing,
Healing process
“I don’t find it a negative at all. I’m more than happy people can cope by themselves, they are not reliant on the next person and that is a good part of the healing process.”
Ms Maguire was buoyed to hear there were formal talks between Malaysia and global leading sea floor searchers Ocean Infinity to initiate another search for the plane.
“We’ve got to find these answers and we’ve got to find them for family and friends. It’s the ‘why’. How did this thing happen? So it is paramount that the search keeps going,” Ms Maguire said. “I think, and a lot of others think, somebody has a lot more information that hasn’t been released or wanting to share for whatever reasons.
“It could be political, someone has got the answers they just have to step up and deliver them.
“Find the black box obviously — rule out the incidentals that may have occurred, electronically or something with the flight, put the speculation at bay, also find the cockpit and you have to see who is in the cockpit and that will answer a lot of questions and put a lot of things to bed or raises new issues.”
Who to blame
On whether she thinks the captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was involved, Ms Maguire can’t be sure.
“I can’t blame anybody for what has happened because I don’t know and I deal only with those facts and at the end we find what has happened your emotions will take you down that road but until then there is no one to blame at the moment, and that is why we do have to find out because we can’t go any further with it in terms of a sense of healing can’t be finalised.”
Cathy and Bob’s daughter Amanda Conlan agreed she was coping much better and has since got married and had a baby boy she named after her dad. Her memories of her parents will never be lost but she has new priorities with hubby Dave and baby Bobby.
“We still want to know the truth but I have tried to put things behind me, get on with things,” she said.
Over in Malaysia, Grace Nathan hopes to be in a position to formally announce details of the expected renewed search for the aircraft when she gathers with the families of Malaysian victims.
The lawyer, whose mother Anne Daisy was on the flight, has been lobbying hard for a renewed search and wants this anniversary to be a positive one with positive news.
She, too, is hopeful now that after six years some new information will be given up by authorities, such as the raw military radar data that may or may not have tracked the aircraft.
“We already pitched the same argument that after six years you can’t possibly have the same security concerns because the release of military data was a matter of national security, but you couldn’t possibly think that six
years later that military radar data is a threat, so we have pitched the idea,” Ms Nathan said. “I don’t know if that avenue is completely shut off or whether they are open to maybe releasing it.
“Maybe just to the official investigation team and not to the public, which we would be fine with as long as a second set of eyes could look at it than the original set of eyes.”
Cautious
On a new search based on new analysis and data, Ms Nathan is quietly hopeful.
“It is difficult to be hopeful because every time we have been hopeful it’s been disappointing. So we have been cautious really and not be too hopeful, more the reverse of hopeful,” she said.
“Try not to be too hopeful and lull ourselves into thinking something might happen but it might not.”
I’m more than happy people can cope by themselves, they are not reliant on the next person, and that is a good part of the healing process JEANETTE MAGUIRE