Family mourns loss of seven loved ones on AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Surabaya, Indonesia (CNN)It
is impossible to measure a family's grief after a disaster like the
crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501. And for one family, they're grappling
with the loss of seven loved ones on the aircraft.
Two
of their family members have been found so far. A total of 37 bodies
have been recovered out of 162 passengers and crew members on board the
AirAsia flight.
We were invited to a
Surabaya funeral home where the family held a visitation for The Meiji
Thejakusuma and her daughter, Stevie Gunaman. Stevie had just turned 10,
two weeks before the flight.
The two
were on their way to a New Year's trip in Singapore with five other
members of their family, including Stevie's father, grandmother,
brother, sister, and her sister's fiancee. The remaining five have not
been found yet.
"I am devastated,"
said Suyono Tedjakusuma, a relative of the victims. "And now, the
waiting for the rest of the family is so difficult."
While
the funerals for The Meiji and her daughter will take place on Friday,
friends and families gathered this week to pay their respects to the
mother and her young child.
"My sister was a businesswoman," said her sister, Ie-wah Thejakusama. "She worked hard. She was kind to everybody."
Stevie was described as a bright girl by her relatives. She was always full of cheer, they said.
In
a Buddhist ceremony, friends and family members lit candles on an altar
and bowed in front of the two caskets. They also folded paper into what
resembled money as part of a Buddhist tradition of burning "money" to
symbolically provide for their loved ones in the afterlife.
Earlier
last week, they continued to hold out hope that some or all of their
family members might have survived the crash. But with the discovery of
mother and daughter's bodies, the hope for a miracle has all but
disappeared.
While they mourn and plan
a funeral, they still have to monitor the news and wait for any word
about their five other loved ones.
"I
cannot accept this. I cannot believe it. Where are my family's bodies?
Where is my mother? My heart is breaking," said family member Suyono.
They told me it's like a nightmare you can't wake up from.
The Meiji was going to spend her 46th birthday in Singapore. Instead, her birthday was the day her body was found.
Source: cnn.com, re-posted by Abdulgafar Esho (www.econsforumnews.blogspot.com)
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