How One Girl Dealt With The Death Of Her MAS Stewardess Mother

After an agonising month, the daughter of a Malaysia Airlines chief stewardess will get to "see" her mother whom she regards as her superhero when the remains of 20 Malaysian victims of downed flight MH17 are brought home today.

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This is the first time Nur Diyana has spoken about her feelings since MH17 carrying 298 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17. She had previously only expressed her feelings over the loss of her mother on Twitter.

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“It was difficult to speak to anybody. I could not deal with people so I took to Twitter. It is my space where I could just voice out what I felt. I did not care what others thought of me. They can form their own opinions but I just wanted to let it out,” said the boarding school student. News of her mother’s death was too much for Nur Diyana to digest.

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She said she knew that everyone meant well when they told her to be strong, but their words riled her up. “Everyone kept telling me to be strong. I know they meant well. But the words just made me angrier. I hated it. I just lost my mother. I just could not take it,” she said.

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Nur Diyana has been on an emotional roller coaster since the incident. She has been sleeping fitfully and admitted to being emotionally unstable. “I could be laughing, putting a smiling face one day and the next I would be in my room and not wish to talk to anybody,” she said.

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Dora’s mother, Hasnah Mohd Yusof, 71, was as distraught when speaking about her daughter. Her grief was more acute when she received a handwritten note from Dora wishing her "Happy Mother’s Day", in which she spoke of her love for her mother. “Diyana was looking through her mother’s things and found it on my birthday. It was exactly a month after the tragedy,” said Hasnah.

For Hasnah, Dora is still around. “I do not feel like she is dead. I feel like she will be coming home at any time. Maybe because I have not seen her body. Maybe it all will sink in tomorrow,” said Hasnah.

The confirmation of the arrival of her mother’s remains today, however, has given her some comfort after being in limbo for a week. Apparently a communication breakdown had caused confusion in Dora Shahila’s family as they had conflicting reports of whether her remains will be among those due to arrive today.

It was finally resolved with the confirmation at 11am yesterday that Dora’s remains will be on the special MAS aircraft which arrives today from the Netherlands.

Nur Diyana said if she were allowed to, she would want to view her mother’s remains, but understood that it was not possible since the coffin has been sealed.

“I miss her. I miss how she would come to get me whenever I call for her at night after waking up from a nightmare. I called for her the other night and ended up crying. She was not there to comfort me,” she said.

Although 15-year-old Nur Diyana Yazeera is aware that she and her family will “welcome home” the remains of Dora Shahila Kassim, the knowledge that her mother will finally "be here" gives her some relief. “I feel relieved that I would finally get to see her one last time, and bid her farewell. "But I am also sad knowing that this is it. She has gone,” said Nur Diyana when met at her family home in Kuala Lumpur.

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