(22 Dec 2014) Their loved ones died in the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004 and they thought their bodies would never been found.
But now two families have just discovered the remains of their loved ones have been lying for years in a cemetery for unclaimed victims in southern Thailand.
As the world prepares to mark the tenth anniversary of one of the worst-ever natural disasters, the families are dealing with the past all over again.
The tsunami started off in Sumatra and then wiped out nearly a quarter of a million lives in 14 countries.
In Thailand, a camera caught the moment the tsunami swallowed up holidaymakers on Khao Lak coast.
Almost 5,400 people died on this coastline that fateful morning.
Among them was May Aye Nwe, a 20-year-old from rural Myanmar, on the cusp of a new life.
She was travelling to Thailand to earn enough money for a nursing course.
On December 26, she took a small boat for the brief sea crossing - just as the tsunami raced in behind.
Her friend Khin Htway Yee was with her.
She survived, but not May, who couldn't swim.
Now a 31-year-old mother of two, Khin recalled the desperate last moments in the churning water and the terrible choice she had to make.
"We were grabbing at one another. Because I have long hair, she tried to pull me, but finally I had to push her away," she said, sitting in the shade of May's family home in Seint Paing village in remote Karen State, Myanmar.
"There was nothing we could do. I was struggling for my life and I couldn't save her," she added.
May's mother learned to live with the loss even though there was no body to bring home.
But a recent AP investigation found there was and traced Aye Pu via May's Myanmar identity card.
It was still on her when she was pulled from the water.
The news has rekindled memories and emotion.
May lies at the Tsunami Victims' Cemetery in southern Thailand, amongst more than 400 unclaimed bodies, taken there eight years ago.
These are the lost; the forgotten victims for whom the past has not been laid to rest.
Thai police have said they will never give up trying to find the families, but progress is painfully slow and the victims' records moulder in a stifling police lock-up.
There are single names that lead nowhere, phones numbers that don't ring, but mostly there's nothing but a description, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) data and a reference number.
It's likely most will never be positively identified and will never go home.
So who were they?
Many believe the answer lies in the army of migrant workers from Myanmar who do the jobs the Thais shun.
Then, as now, many were working in the area illegally and had no documents.
When they died no one knew who they were and those who did know were too scared of arrest and deportation to go to the police.
But on very rare occasions there is progress.
Recently, in the presence of his children, the body of Bhesraj Dhaurali was exhumed.
He was a tailor from Myanmar, of Nepalese descent, who died with his wife and baby girl.
His children said they never knew his body was there, but again, they were traced by the AP from Thai police records.
On a November afternoon Dhaurali was cremated with Hindu rites.
Closure at last after ten years of waiting.
It is unlikely there will be many more.
Closure too, soon, for those in Myanmar who remember the girl with the dream of being a nurse.
Her friend sobbed as she thought of her spirit, adrift for ten years in a foreign land.
"She must be very sad and must be waiting for someone to take her home," said Khin Htway Yee.
But Aye Pu's too poor to pay for that.
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