Dubai: A funeral, especially of a seven-month pregnant woman, is not the norm on anyone's wish list, but for Sri Ayu Melani, an Abu Dhabi housewife from Aceh, Indonesia, that is all that she wants.
Her wish is to attend the funeral of her pregnant sister, brother-in-law, younger brother, and 22 of her relatives in Aceh, Indonesia, who were swept away by the Boxing Day tsunami generated by the 9 magnitude undersea earthquake off the northern part of Sumatra last year.
Their bodies were never recovered 25 of the more than 150,000 estimated dead or missing in Indonesia due to the tsunami.
"It's very painful that I can never see their bodies laid to rest," she tells Gulf News.
"If somebody dies from an illness or an accident, I get to see them interred, but this is like they just vanished," she continued.
A year after the tsunami, Ayu says she still struggles to accept that she lost so many members of her family in the blink of an eye. Her brother, sister and her husband, and her uncle's family lived in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh on Northern Sumatra, which was run over by the fiant waves.
"Until now, I cannot stop my tears when I remember them. I wonder if they are happy and whether they remember me?"
Around the time the waves struck the coastal city, Ayu says she was watching a video tape of her sister's May wedding, which she had just received in the mail.
"Then I heard on CNN about the tsunami and was shocked. I was confused; it didn't cross my mind that it happened to my sister," she says.
Ayu adds that she and her husband, Zakirullah Jailani, who also hails from Aceh, tried to call home but could not reach anyone from home for two to thee days.
When they finally got through, the news was bleak: 25 of her relatives had perished and their bodies missing.
Ayu says she had a warning in the form of a dream that her family was in danger during Ramadan, less than two months prior to the tsunami.
In her dream, she saw her relatives including her parents going to the market, which is usually a Sunday morning activity for Aceh residents. The tsunami struck on a Sunday at about 8am local time.
"I saw many people going into the market and buying many things, but nobody left the market. My mother and father didn't go in, but waited outside. They looked sad," she says.
She adds that she put aside the dream after reassurances from her family that they were safe, and only thought about it when the tsunami struck. Her parents were not affected by the tsunami as they lived in East Aceh.
Ayu says she still dreams of her lost family.
"They appear in my dreams like they want to say thank you for my prayers for them," she says. "They look peaceful, but I wish they can come back," she adds.
