Frozen in time: Families of those on missing Flight 370 cannot shake off their grief without answers

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — 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 mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 that has ripped many 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 MH370 still captivates people around the world. 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 underwater search was fruitless. No wreckage or bodies have ever been found except for some fragments that washed ashore on the eastern African coast and Indian Ocean islands.

Families of those on board, many from China, have found different ways to cope with the grief over the years, but one thing is constant — their mission for justice and answers. The pain continues to torment some families in China, who are skeptical of theories of the plane's fate and hang on to hope that their loved ones may one day 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 Chinese telecommunications company that was cut short by the tragedy.

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.

“We shouted to the Earth: Malaysia Airlines 370. The Earth roars, it is silent and does not go away. It’s not here, not here. Don’t you see the heavy backpack on my son’s shoulders? Drops of sweat from hard work shine on his forehead," says one verse. “We appeal 10,000 times, restart the search.”

“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 10-year remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday, Malaysia's government said it will consider a proposal for a new search by U.S. marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, which conducted a “no find, no fee” hunt in 2018. It is unclear whether Ocean Infinity has new data to pinpoint the location of the plane.

“Once we know what happened, only then can a true form of healing begin ... until those questions are answered, no matter how much you try to move on or how much you try to close that chapter, it will never go away,” Grace said.

Her mother was originally not meant to be on the flight. She was due to fly a week earlier but delayed her trip to care for Grace's ailing grandmother, who died months after the plane's disappearance.

“MH370 extends far beyond our need for closure and I just want everybody to know that MH370 is not history. It’s the future of aviation safety because until we find MH370, we cannot prevent something like this from happening again,” Grace said.

Jacquita Gomes, whose husband Patrick was an inflight supervisor on the plane, said 126 books have been written and numerous documentaries have been made about MH370, but much of that has been speculation with no real answers.

"We keep the memories of him alive and constantly talk about him. He might be gone but not forgotten and never will be, so we urge for the search to go on." she said. “We need to make sure that flights are safe again. ... Let's not forget all those on board.”

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Associated Press video producer Olivia Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.