It has been five years since the MH370 disappeared. Inset: Danice Weeks with her children - JacK (left) and Lincoln (right).
It has been five years since the MH370 disappeared. Inset: Danice Weeks with her children - JacK (left) and Lincoln (right).
Danica Weeks will spend the fifth anniversary of her Kiwi husband Paul's disappearance, on Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, with their two young sons.
"With the boys, and for the boys" — is how the Queensland-based mum describes coping with her grief five years after the Boeing 777 her husband and 238 others were on, including fellow Kiwi passenger Ximin Wang, vanished on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Paul Weeks on his Graduation Day in 2008. Photo / Supplied
Despite an international search effort above and below water only a few small pieces of debris from the plane have been found, discovered after they washed ashore in the Western Indian Ocean.
"With the boys" means taking comfort in their presence, and the constant reminders they give her of their dad, Weeks told the Herald on Sunday ahead of this Friday's anniversary of the plane's disappearance.
"They keep me going every day ... otherwise I wouldn't be here. I just wouldn't be here under this pressure and this pain."
Danica Weeks, pictured in March 2019 with her son Jack Weeks, 5. Photo / Supplied
It also meant never getting on a plane without them.
"I don't fly without them. If something happens ... I've seen them lose one parent and if we've all gotta go, we're all gonna go to Pauly together."
"For the boys" means not giving up the fight to find out what happened to their dad's plane, so 5-year-old Jack and 8-year-old Lincoln don't feel a burden to find MH370 when they grow up, Weeks said.
She is still fighting for the Malaysian Government to put back up the NZ $100 million reward it offered Ocean Infinity last year if the US-based exploration company found MH370 within 90 days.
"I'm not giving up ... my biggest fear is if I don't find out what's happened. That's my burden, but it shouldn't be theirs. They're smart boys, just like their father, and I know they'll want to find out what happened. We all need closure."
Paul Weeks pictured with his two sons, Lincoln and Jack, in Novebmer 2013. Photo / Supplied via Facebook
The last five years have seen countless theories shared about the fate of MH370, some of the latest aired in a new book on the plane's disappearance by Australian author Ean Higgins.
Weeks, who was interviewed by Higgins and was grateful to the journalist for "sticking with the story", said she believed MH370 was the casualty of a malfunction and that the pilots were attempting to return to Kuala Lumpur. Others have claimed the disappearance was mass murder-suicide.
"I never believe in crucifying someone without facts and I don't think that's fair on the pilot's family ... to throw him under the bus, for this is unfathomable.
"My theory may be right, yours may be right. Someone's is and we just need to find out what theory is right, and that's only going to be found out by finding the plane."
She told her sons all she knew, that "dad's still missing on the plane".
"It's part of their life, but Lincoln asked if there was somewhere we can go and see dad. Why can't we?"
Danica Weeks with her sons Jack, 5, and Lincoln, 8. Also pictured are Weeks' mother and step-father, Kay and Geoff Thompson. Photo / Supplied
She would love to take her husband home to New Zealand - he was from Christchurch and she was born in Napier before moving to Noosa aged 10.
"He's still part of my family and I'm taking care of him in a different way than I did when he was here with us. I will keep taking care of him until we have that right to lay him to rest.
"That's what I want. We're all Kiwis, we bring our family home, we lay them in state at home, we say goodbye, and we send their spirit off. He deserves to be brought home and we deserve for him to be brought home."
And if that was no longer possible, she wanted to at least know where her husband was, Weeks said.
"He hasn't been taken by aliens. He has to be somewhere, and I still can't believe that a Boeing 777 can disappear."
