Kellie Kelly, wife of lost Gold Coast fisherman Gavin Kelly, reveals heartache at never knowing how her husband died

VERY few people would know how the relatives of those lost on flight MH370 feel. Kellie Kelly does. Her husband remains in a watery grave off the Gold Coast.

Missing fisherman Gavin Kelly and his wife Kellie in a Facebook picture. Picture: Supplie

VERY few people would understand how the relatives of those lost on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 feel.

Kellie Kelly does.

For the past year, Mrs Kelly’s husband Gavin has lain entombed in the watery grave of a sunken prawn trawler just off the Gold Coast.

She had no chance to say goodbye to her husband of 18 years and father of her three children. She does not know how he died or if he suffered. She has little idea what happened to his body.

“You never heal – it’s just learning to live with it,” she said, wiping tears away.

“Everything is unexplained. We’ll never find out what happened to him.

“The families of those missing on the plane have all that ahead of them,” she added in memory of the people aboard flight MH370, believed to have plunged into the southern Indian Ocean six weeks ago.

“Not to belittle anyone else, but normally when you lose someone there is a process where they have a couple of days to digest it, have a funeral, get closure and know how they died.

“It is not like that for us. It’s all the ‘what ifs’, like ‘What if he was out there for days and saw the planes going over but they never stopped for him?’.”

Missing fisherman Gavin Kelly and his wife Kellie in a Facebook picture. Picture: Supplied

The last time Mr Kelly, who would have turned 41 this week, was seen alive was at 2am on a fateful night on March 1 last year.

The Gold Coast fisherman was a deckhand on Main Beach-based prawn trawler ­D-Titan when he and skipper Dave Burger heard a loud bang seconds before the boat capsized about 14 nautical miles off Southport.

Mr Burger survived in an air pocket in the boat’s cabin before making it to the surface where he released a distress flare. He was winched to safety by a helicopter in a dramatic rescue, seven hours after the boat overturned.

“The last time I saw Gav we were looking at each other and we knew we had to get out, but it just happened too fast,” Mr Burger told rescuers.

Despite a major air and sea search, as the days dragged on Mrs Kelly knew her husband was never coming home. His body was never recovered, believed to be trapped inside the sunken boat deemed too deep and too costly to retrieve.

“We could never begrudge the rescue services – they did an amazing job – and I can’t imagine how they feel when they can’t get someone home,” Mrs Kelly said.

Skipper Dave Burger was rescued from the ocean but deckhand Gavin was never found. Picture: Supplied

There were days when Mrs Kelly did not want to get out of bed but had to keep going for their three kids, Rhys, 13, Jenaya, 15, and Selena, 17.

“Our life just sucks now,” she said.

“It hits me every day. It is all the little things. Every time the moon is out I think they won’t be getting any prawns.

“If something happens I think, ‘I’ve gotta tell Gav that’ and sometimes when the kids talk they sound exactly like Gav and I think he’s in the room – and then I remember.

“I just miss him.

“We’re never going to grow old together, buy a block of land, build a mud brick house on it and sit on the porch with a VB watching the kids run around. That’s all we wanted.”

They’ll never have their ‘happy ever after’. Missing Gold Coast fisherman Gavin Kelly with wife Kellie.

In a tragic twist, Mr Kelly’s twin brother Steve died in a mysterious drowning while diving just four years earlier.

The one solace for Mrs Kelly knowing her husband is out in the ocean is that on the night he went missing, a friend dreamt Steve appeared and put his hand out to his brother telling him ‘It’s OK, come with me’.

“That made me feel better,” said Mrs Kelly.

Missing fisherman Gavin Kelly with his twin brother Steve, who also mysteriously died in the ocean.

With the breadwinner gone, no WorkCover compensation payout and Mrs Kelly studying, the family have struggled financially and were forced to move to a share house in Logan.

The family will not receive any compensation because Mr Kelly was deemed a subcontractor and not an employee.

They are still waiting for a coroner to hand down findings on Mr Kelly’s disappearance before a death certificate can be issued.

But even that will provide them little closure.