Daughter gets her chance to say goodbye

When 33-year-old Jayne Holtham heard a series of memorial services were being planned to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Erebus disaster, she rushed out and booked a flight to New Zealand.

The Sydney woman was only eight when her father, Bryan, was killed in the crash, but to her that day seemed like yesterday.

Ms Holtham said she felt compelled to return to New Zealand so she could finally say her goodbyes as an adult.

"It's quite overwhelming," she said amid her tears at the first of three services she attended yesterday. "It's the most incredible thing to come and say goodbye to him again as an adult."

Bryan Holtham had boarded Flight TE 901 for market research. He was an Air New Zealand sales agent who sold luxury sightseeing trips to Antarctica and he wanted to be able to tell his potential customers exactly what they were buying.

The Holtham family's grieving was made more difficult because his body was never identified.

Ms Holtham said that as a child she was unable to grieve properly.

Shocked and upset adults did not know how to handle children's grief and many youngsters were "put away in a room while adults consoled each other". Yesterday, surrounded by others who had gone through the same experience, she was able to complete her grieving process.

She also took the opportunity to remember the good times. "He rocked my world for eight years."

At the final service, held at Waikumete Cemetery, Ms Holtham laid a bouquet of pale pink roses at the base of a statue acknowledging the victims who were never identified. Her father's name is one of many etched on the stone wall.

With the flowers she placed a copy of a happy family picture taken about a year before her father died.

Beside it was a card, with a loving message to her dad. "Our memories of you are so vivid. You were so special. We sure miss you."