Danica Weeks on MH370: 'I Can't Move On'

Danica Weeks poses outside her Perth home with her two boys, Lincoln and Jack, one year after losing their father Paul in the MH370 airline tragedy. Photo: WHO Magazine

One year after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Perth mother-of-two Danica Weeks is struggling to accept the loss of her husband. "It's getting worse," Weeks tells WHO in an exclusive interview at her home she shares with her boys, Lincoln, 4, and Jack, 22 months. "People say, 'It looks like you're coping,' but I don't cope."

On March 8, 2014, Paul Weeks, an engineer heading to Mongolia for work, was one of 227 passengers on board the Boeing 777 en route to Beijing when it disappeared from the radar. In one of aviation's greatest mysteries, no trace of the aircraft nor its 239 passengers and crew has been found, leaving loved ones in a tortured state of emotional limbo. "Every morning is difficult," says Weeks, 38. "I spend a lot more time in bed. I could happily live in bed 24 hours a day."

Lincoln is struggling, too. "He was dad's little shadow," says Weeks, who moved with the family to Perth in 2011 after Paul, who was born in New Zealand, landed a prized job with an engineering company. "He cries for Dad and when he gets frustrated he screams at me to bring Dad back. It's heartbreaking.'"

Danica Weeks admits she struggles to cope with the loss of her husband Paul in last year's tragic MH370 disaster. Photo: WHO Magazine

Her own grief is compounded by the anguish of not knowing her husband's fate. "I know people think, 'Get over it. He's not coming back,'" says Weeks, who takes antidepressant medication and undergoes counselling every fortnight. "But the human psyche does not accept that until you have proof."

On January 29, Malaysia Airlines officially declared the loss of the plane an "accident." It infuriated Weeks. "I want the statement retracted," she says. "Malaysia's deputy foreign minister has sat across the table from me and said, 'Why can't you accept that he has gone?' I just said, 'You have no proof. Until you have proof, I will not accept it. None of us will.'"

Meanwhile, the search continues. The Canberra-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is coordinating the search way off the coast of Perth, will use four vessels to cover the 60,000sq-km area "by May," chief coordinator Judith Zielke tells WHO. "We are using sonar to take images directly of the ocean floor in great detail."

In the meantime, the anguish of not knowing is overwhelming for Weeks: "For all intents and purposes I'm a single mother, but mentally and emotionally, I'm not. I have had nothing, not a single piece of evidence--a cup or a seat from the aeroplane--to tell me I am not in a relationship. I am stuck in this limbo."

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