Missing, presumed dead

By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Magazine

Twenty-five days after the Asian tsunami, thousands of people are still missing. Some may yet turn up alive, but for their families, the hope may be as painful as the despair.

In the past three weeks, Alan Cox has agonised endlessly about the fate of his missing daughter.

Leanne, 23, was on Phi Phi, a breathtakingly beautiful resort off the Thai coast, when the tsunami struck on 26 December, flattening the island's coastal developments.

Since then her family has heard nothing. While Alan's ex-wife set off to try to find their daughter, he started to help build a website - Tsunami Stories - with his son-in-law, where survivors could tell their story.

"It maybe took my mind off things in the early days," says Alan. "Going on [the site] each day and reading the stories - other stories on there are quite horrendous - has been a little therapeutic."

In the UK as in many countries, dozens of families are facing a similar struggle, locked in the emotional torment of not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

Leanne Cox, who last spoke to her father on Christmas Day In depth: Asian tsunami

Babies, backpackers, young and old alike - some 300 British are presumed to have died in the tsunami, of which 53 are confirmed deaths. A further 400 remain unaccounted for.

The Cox family has resigned itself to the thought Leanne was probably killed, but without a body to confirm their suspicion, they are "still hoping for some sort of a miracle", says Alan.

The act of grieving for a beloved person, without having seen their body, and so knowing without question they are dead, defies emotional comprehension.

The normal grieving procedures are often replaced by an "immobilising ambiguity" says Professor Pauline Boss, the world expert in what's sometimes known as unresolved grief.

The helplessness can lead to depression, anxiety and family conflict, and these conditions can develop into physical illnesses, says Prof Boss. More distant friends and acquaintances may lose patience with the lack of closure, leaving families isolated.

Therapists, such as Paul Carney, who worked with families following the Lockerbie and Herald of Free Enterprise disasters, believe our grief process is cultural. Seeing a body helps conquer the denial that follows any sudden death.

Empowerment

"The British tend to put on a black armband and go back to work after three days," he says. "But while there's no corpse there will always be a fantasy that this person didn't die."

The memorial service didn't alter a thing - you get up the next day and you have this bucketful of emotion to deal with and your life to rebuild September 11th widow Elizabeth Turner Who are the UK tsunami victims?

Having a body also puts control back into the hands of the bereaved, empowering them to say "goodbye" by letting go at a funeral.

Elizabeth Turner understands what the tsunami families are going through. Three years ago she was thrust into a similar state of emotional limbo, when her husband, Simon, was caught in the 11 September attacks during a business trip to New York.

Elizabeth, 33 at the time, and seven months pregnant, was at work in London when the news broke. At first she waited in the office, hoping he would call. It never came. She describes the days that followed as a "mad period", as she became consumed by anxiety but still refused to accept that he was probably dead.

She clung to hope that Simon, 39, might be discovered in a hospital or shelter. A responsibility to her unborn baby kept her eating and sleeping, but it was exhausting.

"The sheer energy that is required to deal with grief just took everything," she says, thinking back to the immediate aftermath.

A family liaison officer, assigned by the Metropolitan Police - standard protocol in such situations - became the filter through which all news, or lack of it, was passed to her. It was, she says, a "fabulous service". Then, 10 days after the attacks, her family sat her down and told her all searches for Simon had proved fruitless.

Urn of ashes

"I accepted it on one level - realising that Simon was not coming back. But the other levels, that our baby would have a mother but no father, being the breadwinner, being on your own, a widow, all these came later, in stages.

In New York authorities pledged to search through every piece of rubble

"With hindsight you recognise how you deal with grief at different stages: layer after layer, like peeling an onion."

The next step, a memorial service in honour of Simon, held more value for friends than for Elizabeth herself.

"It doesn't alter a thing. You get up the next day and they're still not here and you have this bucketful of emotion to deal with and your life to rebuild."

There were also visits to Ground Zero, six months after the attack, as well as on the first and second anniversaries, and an urn of ashes from the site which the New York authorities gave to families where a body had not been recovered. It left Elizabeth "non-plussed" but it might mean more in the future.

All the time, there was no word of Simon's body, despite the authorities' strenuous efforts to identify remains.

"I assumed at the beginning that I would get Simon back and part of me was waiting for that phone call, but as time went on I almost stopped wanting that call because I'd dealt with so many things. It's very dangerous to think it will provide - that awful phrase - 'closure'."

As with 11 September, forensic scientists in Thailand are working tirelessly to match bodies with the DNA of surviving family. But positive matches do not immediately yield positive feelings among the bereaved.

'Interminable agony'

Monique Fowler-Paul, who lost her father in the World Trade Center attacks, was in a similarly ambiguous state to that of Elizabeth Turner. Following the turbulent aftermath, and the hope that James R Paul, then 58, might have survived the attacks, she reconciled herself to the belief his body had been vaporised.

It helped tremendously... it fostered very close bonds Monique Fowler-Paul on the benefit of a support group

Then in early 2002, things began to change. His driving licence was retrieved from the ruins and returned, forcing Monique's family to re-open wounds that had only just started to heal.

"It felt like a punch in the stomach," says Monique, a PhD student in London. "This was not what I was looking for, but if that survived maybe his body did too."

Then his insurance card was found. It felt like a "tease" says Monique. "This stuff is coming from the rubble so now I'm picturing his body in the rubble."

The uncertainty - whether or not to prepare for the body - was "interminable agony" and when, a few days before the first anniversary, detectives revealed that parts of James Paul's body had been recovered, the family were plunged back into turmoil. Contradictory emotions - horror and relief - were pitched against each other.

Although it was only 10% of the body, the family held a burial, and had a headstone made, providing a focus for their grieving, and "more relief". Then, in April last year, the rest of the remains were found, trigging a relapse of post-traumatic stress for one of Monique's relatives.

Monique though was "glad" and she helped arrange a second burial ceremony.

"It was extremely helpful. It was restful. But again it opened up the whole grief process. It drew everything out and the details were extremely gory."

Her experiences will make difficult reading for the tsunami families, but Monique highlights a small compensation from losing a loved one in a disaster in which others also died - the support of fellow sufferers.

"It helped tremendously that other people had been through what I'd been through. It fostered very close bonds."

Elizabeth Turner has also turned her terrible ordeal into something positive, setting up a charity, called Simon & Us [see Internet Links], to promote her spiritual approach to grief and loss. Only in the last three months, she says, has she regained the energy she had before the disaster.

Thanks to Cruse Bereavement Care for help with this article.