KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 ― Her mother vanished with 238 others on board the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 a full year ago today, but for Grace Subathirai Nathan, the time and distance has not eased the ache in her heart.
In an emotion-laden tribute here today to mark the anniversary of the plane’s disappearance en route to Beijing, the 27-year-old woman described with startling clarity the last time she conversed with her mother Anne Daisy.
“I remembered the last words were we told how much we love each other,” Grace told friends and family of other stricken passengers and crew members gathered for the Remembrance Day organised by Voice370 at the Publika shopping mall this afternoon.
She was in the UK, about to take her exams and was confiding in her mother on the phone.
While her father was around, it was her mother she turned to whenever she needed anything, something she had taken for granted until she went abroad to study.
“She was everything to me. She was my go-to person, my friend. Everything,” Grace said.
“I love my family. But I did not appreciate them much. I took my family for granted,” she said, choking back a sob.
She recalled the day her father called her to tell her the news, sounding shaken, which frightened her.
The 15-hour flight back to Malaysia, Grace said, was the longest wait as she did not know what happened.
“Sadly, one year later, I still don't know what happened. Every day was like a living nightmare,” she said.
The hundred-plus people present who had been checking their smartphones earlier kept their attention fully on Grace as she spoke.
Now a lawyer and one of the most recognisable faces of the families left behind, Grace said she hopes to find out what happened to her mother to get some form of closure.
She didn’t disguise the tears that flowed freely as she stepped off the makeshift stage into the embrace of a family member standing nearly.
Elsewhere around the world, similar emotional gatherings were held on the anniversary of the plane’s first disappearance even as the first comprehensive report was released, with few new information providing clues to the fate that befell its passengers and crew.
Malaysia and China were both swift to assure their citizens that they would continue the search for the plane.
AFP reported Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying that while the current search area is expected to be completed in May, the operation could be extended further “as long as there are reasonable leads”.
