ldb

ads

Re: repent ! repent! repent!Flight MH370: 'I just keep hoping he’ll come home'

There is no Christmas tree this year at the
Gomes residence in Kuala Lumpur, no lights,
and no big celebration over the holiday season;
there's nothing to celebrate. Jacquita Gonzales'
husband is still missing.
"Usually Patrick is on leave from 22 December
up until new year, so he would be home for
almost two weeks," she says of her childhood
sweetheart, Patrick Gomes, the lead steward on
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which
disappeared on 8 March en route from Kuala
Lumpur to Beijing.
"I keep thinking of the Christmas carol I'll Be
Home for Christmas, and I just keep hoping he'll
be home. But because he's not around, it's very
difficult."
The couple met when she was 12 and married
when she was 22. She recently celebrated his
55th birthday without him. Life without Gomes
over the past nine months has been an
emotional rollercoaster, she says, beginning
with the way she learned her husband's flight
had simply vanished from radar screens: a
friend watching CNN phoned her with the news
the next morning.
Since then there's been little more than
speculation, conspiracy theories and titbits of
tangible information about what really
happened that fateful spring morning, when
MH370 disappeared with all 239 people on
board.
Analysis of satellite "pings" emitted by the plane
saw investigators conclude that it probably
crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but
search teams have yet to turn up any evidence.
Australia's Transportation Safety Bureau has
been leading a deep-sea search for the plane
over a 55,000 sq km priority area, much of which
is 6,000 metres below the sea's surface.
Without any wreckage, evidence or viable cause
for the crash, Gonzales and her four children –
three daughters aged 29, 27 and 25, and a son,
15 – have been left bewildered and traumatised.
They keep the house in order in hope of
Gomes's return – a hope that still exists amidst
the uncertainty and fear that surrounds his
disappearance.
His flight uniform is in a basket, waiting to be
ironed, his shoes and slippers just outside the
door.
"Nothing has changed," says Gonzales. "When
we talk or grumble [with one another] we still
say, 'Just wait til your father gets back, he's going
to be so upset with you.'" She laughs quietly.
"We try to keep things comfortable so that when
he comes back he can relax."
Gonzales says she reads everything about what
may have happened to the plane: theories it was
hijacked, or laden with lithium-ion batteries that
exploded, or otherwise succumbed to foul play.
But none of it provides any lasting peace,
because none of the answers are final.
"Sometimes the speculations [seem] so real that
you go, 'OK, there's a chance everything's going
to be OK.' And then something else comes along
and you're just falling flat again," she says.
"You just try to keep busy every day so you don't
just think and think and think … [Then] you'll be
driving in the car and suddenly your mind
wanders and you just start crying."
Gonzales rejected the airline's offer of therapy
and initially sought consolation from other,
equally bewildered, MH370 crew families, with
whom she still shares stories and tears. Then, in
July, after flight MH17 was believed to have been
shot down in Ukraine en route from Amsterdam
to Kuala Lumpur, Gonzales began offering her
own counselling to the bereaved family
members of those on board – an effort, she
says, that could only be borne by those who
knew exactly what they were going through.
"They seem pretty OK," Gonzales says of the
MH17 victims' relatives to whom she reached
out. "They have had closure already and I think
they are just moving on. Now it's about finding
out who shot the plane down, as most of the
[other] stuff has already been settled."
She goes quiet, her sadness tinged perhaps with
understandable envy for the answers she
wishes she had.
Like her, many other relatives of those on board
MH370 are also waiting for their loved ones to
come home. Most have refused the airline's
initial compensation offer of $50,000 (£32,100)
provided to next of kin, according to Malaysia's
transport minister.
"We have extended the initial compensation of
$50,000 to the family members but
unfortunately many still do not want to receive it
because they still consider their family members
are still alive as we have yet to find any aircraft or
bodies from the MH370 tragedy."
It has been a bad year for Malaysia Airlines: first
MH370, then MH17; massive job cuts; an
insensitively titled ticket contest named "My
Ultimate Bucket List"; a steward charged with
sexually assaulting a passenger; and ultimately
its expected delisting and $2bn restructuring.
But the worst for Gonzales – who was herself a
flight attendant – was the chief executive's
statement that MH370 would be officially
declared "lost" by the year end to expedite
insurance claims for the bereaved.
"How can you [force] closure?" she asks,
incredulous. "That doesn't mean that everything
is just over – we are still around, we are still
waiting. I don't think we will ever let them close
[things] until we have an answer to where the
plane is."
Her daughters avoid the news. They are waiting
for tangible answers before they make any
conclusions about their father's fate. But
Gonzales knows her son is suffering. His room is
scattered with old photographs taken from
family and wedding albums, though he keeps
his anguish quiet. The most important thing, she
says, is to keep the conversation going, whether
it's at home or in the public eye – so that no one
forgets that the mystery still hasn't been solved.
"There are still 239 lives that are out there
missing, we need people to keep asking
questions and keeping it alive so that the [search
team] who are helping with the search know
that we are still waiting," she says. "It's not a
waste of their time to be out there looking in the
Indian Ocean, so far away from their own
families. We really, really appreciate it."


On 12/24/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and looses his
> soul????
>
> For the wages of sin is death !
>
> God is watching!!!
>
> On 12/24/14, Carine Falli <carine_falli@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hello Dearest
>> Thank you so much for writing back and I will really like to have a good
>> relationship with you, because I have a special reason why I decided to
>> contact you, due to the urgency of my situation here and I am Miss Carine
>> Falli, 24 years old girl from Sudan to Central Africa, 5.9ft tall, the
>> only
>> daughter of My late father (Dr Barnabas Falli). was Assistant managing
>> director of Sudan Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and Ministry of
>> Commerce and Industry, who was killed by (Dr John Garang deGa rangr) and
>> his
>> rebels groups after many innocent soul were killed ,My father was killed
>> by
>> government of (Dr John Garang de Mabior), he accuse my father of coup
>> attempt before the election.
>>
>> I am constrained to contact you because of the maltreatment I, am
>> receiving
>> from my step mother. She planned to kill me and take away all my late
>> father's treasury and properties from me since the unexpected death of
>> my
>> beloved father.
>>
>> Meanwhile I wanted to escape to the Europe but she hide away my
>> international passport and other valuable traveling documents. Luckily
>> she
>> did not discover where I kept my Father's File which contains important
>> documents. So I decided to run to the refugee camp where I am presently
>> seeking asylum under the United Nations High Commission for the Refugee
>> here
>> in Dakar , Republic of Senegal . remember that I wish to contact you
>> personally due to the trust i am depositing on you,
>>
>> My father of blessed memory deposited the sum of US$7.3 Million (seven
>> Million three Hundred Thousand Dollars) in a Bank with my name as the
>> next
>> of kin. However, I shall forward you with the necessary information of
>> the
>> deposit on confirmation of your acceptance to assist me for the transfer
>> and
>> investment of the fund. As you will help me in an investment, and I will
>> like to complete my studies, as I was in my first year in the university,
>> when the crisis started.
>>
>> It is my intention to compensate you with 20% of the total money for your
>> services and the balance shall be my investment capital. This is the
>> reason
>> why I decided to contact you. Please all communications should be through
>> my
>> email address and this is the Rev Father Bright telephone number (
>> +221765276255 ) i will like you to call and tell him to send for
>> me.
>> he will send for me.
>>
>> As soon as I receive your positive response I will put things into action
>> immediately. In the light of the above, I shall appreciate an urgent
>> message
>> indicating your ability and willingness to handle this transaction
>> sincerely.
>> I'm staying at the female hostel. Awaiting your urgent and positive
>> response. Please do keep this only to your self please I beg you not to
>> disclose it till I come over , once the fund has been transferred, Please
>> do
>> send me your full information, so that i will inform the bank and late
>> them
>> know you are my foreign business partner/trustee and for them to know you
>> are for me when you contact them and I will send you the bank contact
>> information once I receive your full details..
>> Fill the information's below and get back to me.
>>
>> 1. Your Full Names:.............................
>> 2. Your Address:...............................
>> 3. Your Sex:.................................
>> 4. Your Age...............................
>> 5. Your Marital status:..............
>> 6. Your Occupation.........................
>> 7. Your Direct Phone number:.....................
>> 8. Your Resident City:......................
>> 9. Your Resident State:......................
>> 10.Your Country:.................................
>> Meanwhile i will like you to call me like i said, i have a lot to tell
>> you.
>> Dearest i want you to know that age or distant doesn't matter anything
>> but
>> love matters a lot of things. I would like to know more about you, your
>> likes and dislikes,your hobbies and what you are doing presently.I will
>> tell
>> you more about myself in my next mail. Attached here is my picture,
>> Hoping
>> to hear from you soon.
>> Have a nice day and think about me.
>> Yours love, Miss Carine Falli
>

No comments

Powered by Blogger.