The mother I lost tragically

Patrick Aquilina's letter, Collapse Of St Paul's Bay Block, (November 2) highlights the moral and civil implications of the tragedy of June 3, 2004.

I appreciate Mr Aquilina's concern about Charles Farrugia's plight but has anyone thought what it is like for me? Can anyone imagine what it is like to talk to my mother while collecting my two-year-old daughter from her home at 1.30 p.m. and shortly afterwards we are informed that her flat has collapsed and my mother is buried under it?

Can anyone imagine what I went through during those agonising hours when I was waiting for news of my mother and Nadya? Can anyone imagine what it is like to see her lifeless body being pulled out of the rubble?

Can anyone imagine what it feels like to see that my mother's house - the home my parents worked so painstakingly to set up and where my mother and I lived after my father's death - does not exist any more except for the hanging front door leading to nowhere?

Can anyone imagine what it is like to hear my two-year-old daughter look for her nanna with a puzzled expression saying "No nanna... nanna gone..." or when she hears a female voice on my phone and excitedly tells me "Nanna, nanna"? How can I explain to her that now she has no nanna? Ironically, her paternal grandmother also died exactly three weeks to the day before the tragedy.

Can anyone imagine what it is like for me to seek my mother's advice, guidance and support and realise that this is denied to me because she was so cruelly and unexpectedly taken away from me?

Can anyone realise the psychological effects which this tragedy has left on me, my husband and our two-year-old daughter?

We eagerly await the conclusions of the investigations regarding my mother's and Nadya's sudden and tragic deaths - investigations which are still going on after five months. In any way, platitudes and mere rhetoric will not change our current state of affairs.