In My Dreams I Still See Them- A Survivor's Story

On December 26, 2004 Asha Balachandra lost her mother, grandmother and aunt when the tsunami waves struck the southern coastline of Sri Lanka. Asha wrote this piece on the one year anniversary of the tragedy. Asha’s article was published on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald on December 26, 2005.

December 26, 2005

By Asha Balachandra

It is almost a year since the tsunami. Twelve months since the day I was trapped in van, filling with water. Twelve months since I almost died. Twelve months since I have seen or spoken to my darling mother, aunt and grandmother, other than in my dreams.

How happy we were as we planned Christmas in Sri Lanka in December 2004. It had been ages since we'd had Christmas there. I was flying in from Hong Kong, where I was working, and Mum and Dad were coming from Australia. And we happened to be on a coastal road on Boxing Day in one of the worst-hit areas right at the moment the tsunami hit.

We were driving to our death, and we didn't know it. Down to the perfectly timed minute, every single decision we made put us on the path to death.Our mini-van was pushed off the road by the water and careered out of control until it smashed against a tree. As the van filled with sea water over our screaming heads, I desperately forced the side window open and pulled my dad onto the roof.

Then it went eerily quiet the first wave had receded. I coaxed my mother out. As she and I waded neck deep in water towards the hope of higher ground, we were hit by the second wave that wave killed my mother, my grandmother and my aunt. I was dragged through the water by two village boys who had appeared from nowhere, to a semi-constructed building and from there I watched the water rise until it lapped at my ankles and all I could see was water. It was biblical.

My father was rescued hanging from a tree. We spent the next 24 hours at two different temples converted into refugee camps with no water, no food and the screams of the dying around us. The Australian Government rescued us. I hospitalized my father in Colombo, then went back to the devastated area to look for my mother, aunt and grandmother.

I promised my father that I would find my mother alive. I found her: she looked like a sleeping angel there were flowers at her feet and her sari was intact. She was a peaceful vision, among all the stench, filth, rubble and the scattered bloated, dead, naked bodies.

Where was God when we were dying? Could I have saved my mother if I had held onto her?All between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, I died a thousand times over and my life ceased to make sense. It still seems surreal that this is now part of my life story. It doesn't fit the chronology of events that went before it. For all the times we had counted ourselves so lucky to live the happy, contented lives we were living, it seemed to balance out in a fateful minute, when we gave back. This doesn't happen to people like you and me. This kind of horror happens to ``other people'' and we watch them on CNN, we shed tears, we give some money, and then we go back to our lives and we worry about how much we weigh, how much money we should be making, and why our lives don't look like we believe they should. What I would give to go back to worrying about the things that occupied my mind before Boxing Day 2004.There are times I can't deal with it, when I can't breathe listening to the pain and suffering in my father's voice. He asks my mother to make him a coffee every morning. He looks for her in the car seat next to him, hoping he will see her. He looks for her shadow as he works in the garden where she would always come out and call to him, asking him if he needed anything. He lost his soul mate, his constant companion for 33 years.

I sit on my sofa in my apartment, my heart crying out for her. And on TV I see the thousands of ruined lives, the families torn apart and made homeless, children orphaned in an instant. And I wonder about the luxury of my suffering. A fisherman in Sri Lanka living in an aluminium shed is saying words I have uttered every day. Our pain is the same.

So now, in the absence of everything, I ponder how to make sense of life again. How to live with this terrible, almost incomprehensible event as part of my history, which has also left a huge void in my life and therefore my future the absence of my soft, sweet, gentle, smiling mother; from the happy times ahead which we never got to have to those recipes I meant to get from her, the strength she gave me even from afar, her insatiable appetite for every minute detail of my life, her incredible memory in relation to everything about me. There is nothing that compares to a mother's love. Grief is like nothing I've experienced before. It is a long, dark corridor, down which I must walk. I do not know how far along it I have come, and if and when I will see light again.

I want to thank every one of you who reached out to me when you heard the news. The outpouring of sympathy and compassion, the offers of help, the emails, the calls: people who knew me, and strangers. I am sorry for not responding: in the midst of my pain, I had no words. I am also incredibly grateful for the love my amazing friends and colleagues have shown me you have all helped shoulder me through this year.

Last year I mentioned a charitable trust fund to help those who suffer, and I have done very little towards establishing it, as this year has been about self-preservation, survival, finding warmth and purpose and the strength to go on. But I will do it I do want to make sure that something good comes from this scarring event. I cannot bear for my mother to have died in vain.

I know I'm not there yet. But I'm grateful for every moment I'm not in pain. I feel my mother's presence more and more, and am now convinced that when someone loves you intensely, death cannot keep them from being with you.We should make the most of what we have. Don't fret the small stuff. Hug your mother even though she might be driving you insane. Who cares that your life isn't perfect? Nobody's is. So if you can't make your life any better, spend 10 minutes trying to make someone else happy, and I promise, you will reap a reward.

And in the meantime, love what you have. Dream big, happy, bold dreams. Drink your best wine, wear your best clothes, laugh loudly, dance freely. You know, this gig isn't so bad after all.

Asha Balachandra lives in Hong Kong and is a corporate lawyer working for an asset management firm. She grew up in Brunei and in Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/in-my-dreams-i-still-see-them-a-survivors-story/2005/12/25/1135445487727.html