Tsunami - 10 weeks on: The torment of the unknown

A memorial cross remembers some of those who died in Khao Lak, Thailand, in the waves of December 26. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Michelle Bond is waiting for the telephone call which will tell her the body of her brother has been found.

It has been more than two months since Stephen Bond died but the urge to find him is no less strong for his sister from Christchurch, who now lives in Taiwan.

Mr Bond and his Thai wife Janjira are presumed to have died in the tsunami that swept away Khao Lak, a resort area where they were holidaying in Phang Nga province in Thailand.

Ms Bond flew to Thailand and spent days searching through bodies at a temple housing thousands of corpses in the hope of finding him.

She did find a photograph of him on a wall crowded with pictures of the missing but her search proved futile. Even now, New Zealand police are confident the body of the 46-year-old, who had a construction company in Bangkok, will be recovered.

Ms Bond is back in Taiwan where she teaches English, but plans to return to Thailand again within the next few months, such is the need for closure.

"I'm just waiting for a phone call I guess," she told the Herald.

In Taiwan everyone has been "really nice", she says.

"The children I teach have been crying."

But the hard part is the isolation of what she has been through. Unless there, it is hard to comprehend the task which confronted her.

Ms Bond has already returned to Thailand. She and her brother's Thai driver went to Khao Lak to look again for Stephen's body.

On the last day - "I wanted to go one last time" - they found his car, which had been dug out of the sand. and which she said was strangely comforting. But they did not find him.

She heard later someone handed in his driver's licence.

She expected to have bad dreams about her time at the temple but has not. Instead, she has dreamed of her brother alive, and of her nana who died a long time ago.

The whole experience has been surreal, she says.

"I had a dream with my brother in and I said to him 'so, you're not dead then?' and he said 'No.' I woke up thinking, 'Oh, God'. It's just my unconscious, because I guess it isn't concluded yet."

When the Herald met Ms Bond at the temple where she was searching for Stephen, she wanted to find him so she could wash him, clothe him and put him somewhere nice.

She still wants this. She has written a lot of poetry about her time there and says she noticed everyone who was searching had a certain look about them.

"It was just this desire to find the bodies and put them somewhere nice that motivates them. You look briefly [at the bodies] and say no, it's not him. We just have a strong will to find the body.

"I don't want to leave Stephen and Janjira there because their deaths were violent and I want to take them away from that."

Friends have told her it is normal to want to find them, that all throughout history people have taken bodies, from wars or disasters, to lay them to rest with dignity.

"That will be the hardest thing, if they don't find the bodies, knowing they are somewhere."

She was moved by coverage in the media recently of the discovery of a camera at Khao Lak.

The memory card was removed and when the photographs were printed they showed a couple on the beach with a series of waves coming in behind them. Their bodies have since been identified.

"I thought 'Oh, they've found them', but they haven't found Stephen."

While Ms Bond waits in Taiwan, Mr Bond's mother, Doreen Hansen, and another sister, Nicola, wait in Christchurch.

Mrs Hansen has been told that even though the body of another New Zealander, Belinda Welch, was identified recently, it could take another seven months before he is found.

"What can I say, it's a nightmare.

"It's just a waiting game and very sad and really hard to believe he's not going to come walking through that door again, or ring me or email me, things like that."

She has supplied DNA, as have his little boys, who survived the destruction in Khao Lak.

Mr Bond had a cottage in Phuket but had taken the family for a holiday further north to Khao Lak.

"He rang me on Christmas Day to wish us all Happy Christmas and said 'We're at the beach mum, I won't be able to get in touch with you until we get back to Bangkok.'

"I didn't know at that stage that he was going further north. I thought he was just in his cottage and you know, that cottage wasn't touched."

She is comforted that on April 5 it is the 100th day of death in Buddhism and Mr Bond's Thai friends will go to the beach where he disappeared and perform rituals.