She wept, waited and grieved for 55 days. Then, she found a way of closure - at least resembling one.

Reshma, mother of 26-year-old Gautam, who went missing in the sea during fishing in July off Kollam coast performed his final rites on a carved wooden statue resembling her son.

Gautam went missing after a fishing boat capsized at Neendakara on July 31. His father Radhakrishnan, 48, and grandfather Rajeevan, 74, who were also on the boat, died in the accident. Protests by Gautam's mother, Reshma, intensified the search, with Additional Coastal Police boats deployed and Coast Guard helicopters and drones pressed into service. However, the search was called off after they failed to locate him.

While his father's and grandfather's bodies were recovered and laid to rest, the family waited for Gautam. However, hope aged into despair with each passing day, dimming the promise of his return.

"Every time they heard the news of a body being washed ashore, they wondered if it was him," Nija Anil, ward member of Althara Beach, told Onmanorama. "Once, a body about 30 days old was found. We really thought it was him and the family went over to identify it. But it wasn't," she said.

"The mother waited to find at least a body part of her son. But they found nothing," she added.

To the family, the wait was a blend of relief and grief. There was relief in knowing that he would finally receive his last rites and rest in peace, but it also came with the burden of accepting his death.

"The priest had told us to wait for about 40 days to see if we could find his body. With the time frame passing, we took his advice and commissioned the carving," Sreedas, Reshma’s brother, told Onmanorama.

The statue, carved to resemble a young man standing up to knee height, was laid to rest on Monday. "They performed the rites as though it were really him. Like they do for real people," says Nija.

Despite the peace that comes with having performed his last rites, the family remains in agony. Nija visits the home every now and then to check on Reshma and her mother, Suma. The two widows sit silently in different corners of the house, devastated by the tragedy that tore their family apart.

"They had sold their house to buy the boat," says Nija. Now the boat is gone, and so is the man who put food on their tables, forcing Reshma and her younger son Ratheesh to move in with her mother.

While promises of a job for Ratheesh were made at the time of the tragedy, the government has come nowhere close to making it a reality for them, says Nija. "We are all fisherfolk. That's what we do. But they can't send him out to sea either because of what had happened," she said.

Meanwhile, the family is unable to pledge Suma's house to repay their loans because they do not have valid documentation. "Everyone is sympathetic about their situation. But when it comes to loans, they demand every penny," she said. Even the community's attempts to help them repay the loans were not enough. "We try to help them. But how much can we help with our incomes from fishing?" she said.

The tragedy crushed the bold woman Nija knew Reshma to be. Reshma's ability to read and understand the post-mortem report has left her carrying the burden of knowing what her family endured, Nija said. "The police handed her the post-mortem report and she read it through. She knew exactly how her father and husband died and what they had to go through," she said. Reshma would recall each bruise and broken bone and break into tears every now and then.

Knowing so much about how her father and husband died, but having no idea how Gautam died, has made things worse. "She would think of all the possible ways in which he suffered and cry," Nija said.

Apart from the three fishermen who went missing off the Kerala coast, Shijin, 32, disappeared after a fishing boat capsized off Muthalapozhi, while John, 54, of Pulluvila, was reported missing following a separate boat mishap off the Thiruvananthapuram coast on the same day. The incidents triggered protests over delays in launching search operations, with protesters also pressing the government to deploy additional services.