CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN
Both Ms Jhala and Ms Jaryal have made separate trips to Mount Kinabalu in the years after, both to come to terms with the tragedy as well as to commemorate their loved ones.
Ms Jaryal made the trek in 2023, an experience which she said made her feel closer to Navdeep.
“I just wanted to walk in the same steps that he walked in, breathe the same air that he was breathing, take in whatever he was seeing … and just to complete something that he was so excited to embark on,” she said.
She prepared for the hike as Navdeep did, climbing stairs and doing practice hikes at Bukit Timah Hill.
But it still did not prepare her for the behemoth that was Mount Kinabalu.
“I kind of underestimated how hard it was going to be,” she said, looking back at her struggles as she approached the 4,095m summit.
“There were certain points I was telling myself ‘I cannot, I can’t do this anymore’,” she said.
But she had brought with her a photo of Navdeep. At pit stops, she would look at it to remind herself of why she was doing this.
“There was a deep sense that I know I have to finish this,” she said. “So I’ll continue, painful or not; I’ll continue, I’ll get it done.”
When she reached the peak, she was overwhelmed.
“I don’t know how to put it into words; I think for me, in a sense, it felt like I was close to my brother, like he’s here with me,” she said.
“It’s like a sense of healing, (that) I can kind of put this to rest, nothing is left incomplete.”
For Sonia’s sister Ms Jhala, her visit to Kinabalu struck a different kind of nerve.
She had accompanied survivors and other family members of victims back to the site on a commemorative hike, just a year after the incident.
“I wouldn’t say it brought closure, it was a bit traumatic reliving and walking through majority of the walk that she had done,” said Ms Jhala.
While some participants like her brother and cousin managed to reach the summit, Ms Jhala and her father did not, bowing out to the arduous journey.
The harsh elements she encountered helped answer some burning questions she had over the incident.
“I had a lot of questions like why didn’t she get out of the way? Why didn’t she try to get herself to safety?
“It wasn’t until I actually climbed that I saw there was physically no way for her to have escaped,” she said. “It was just an extremely unfortunate series of events.”
