Wife of Flight 370 passenger: 'I needed to know they were looking for Pauly' By Paula Newton, CNN April 5, 2014

Wife of Flight 370 passenger: 'I needed to know they were looking for Pauly'

By Paula Newton, CNN

April 5, 2014 -- Updated 1224 GMT (2024 HKT)

Source: CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Paul Weeks was on a business trip aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
• Weeks has tried to keep a sense of normalcy around her home in Perth for her sons
• Still, there are questions from her 3-year-old that are difficult to hear and answer
• "We find the brightest star and he says, 'Goodnight daddy, I love you. See you in the morning for breakfast"

Perth, Australia (CNN) -- Danica Weeks says she just couldn't take it anymore. So she did what no other relative of those missing on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could do: She made the 10 minute drive from her home near Perth to the nerve center of the search for the missing plane at Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce, and asked what they were doing to try and find her husband.

"I've seen what they're doing and have been taken over the process and I feel so privileged that I'm here now, that I'm right on and close to the search and that I can ask the questions," Weeks told CNN in an interview at her home Friday.

"And I feel so much for the families that are abroad -- in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, the U.S. and everywhere else -- all families, that they can't be here."

Weeks' 39-year-old husband, Paul, a mechanical engineer, was on Flight 370. He was headed to Mongolia on a project and expected to be home to celebrate his son Jack's first birthday in a few weeks.

"Sometimes I catch myself, you know, seeing the excitement of him coming home and I have to get ... that out of my brain quick because I can't let myself go to that level of excitement ... it's only going to make me crash further when I find out the real truth, which we're all expecting will be the plane has crashed. But until that point and we have something concrete, I can't grieve." said Weeks.

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But seeing the international search effort firsthand has given Weeks a measure of comfort, she said. Still, she does have nagging doubts about the lack of evidence and the amount of guesswork that has driven the investigation so far.

The search goes underwater

"This area -- where they are now -- if it's there, they're going to find it, but it's a big question that everybody's got. Is it the right area? It's a calculated guess," she said.

"So the hardest process for me is understanding that a commercial airline can just go black. That someone can just turn off all communications, all matter of tracking an airline and it can just disappear. And this is the mystery."

Weeks says her two sons, Lincoln, 3, and 11-month-old Jackson are too young yet to understand what's happened to their father and for that, this mother says she's grateful. Still, there are questions from her 3-year-old that are difficult to hear and answer.

"We find the brightest star and he says, 'Goodnight, Daddy, I love you. See you in the morning for breakfast.' And that breaks my heart.

"The other day I was going to work and (her son) said, 'Are you going off to work forever like Daddy?' and I, I obviously had to reassure him that I wasn't. So, I think that he's getting, he's getting it, that dad is gone and not coming back." said Weeks.

Weeks said she has complete confidence in the search team and believes that if searchers are looking in the right place, they will find something. And for that reason she says it's crucial that the international mission keep going for as long as it takes.

"We need something -- the families need something. We need answers -- not just for me, but for my children. They will ask questions. I think the world wants to know because it's such an unusual, extraordinary thing to happen. So we have to just fight for answers," she said.

What happens when the pinger's batteries die?

Weeks has tried to keep a sense of normalcy around her home for her boys. She's continued working and takes the boys out on frequent outings to family and friends. She said she owes it to them and to her husband to get to the bottom of what happened.

She is realistic, she said, and knows there's a chance they may never find out what happened to Flight 370.

"I've thought of that possibility, yes. Am I willing to accept that right now? No. I'm not at that point. Because if this was me on that plane, Pauly would be fighting, going everywhere, asking every question, chasing down to find out what happened to me -- for our sons and for himself," said Weeks.

"So I just have to do my utmost right now, and keep going to find the truth. This will all encompass me, completely."