- Natalie Juniardi was three months pregnant with her first child when she lost her husband, John, in the Bali Bombings tragedy.
- Each year on the anniversary of the bombings, Natalie and her children Kiola, Kaden and Jay return to Kuta beach to throw petals in the water.
- Now 23 years on, Natalie has found love again.
Here Natalie tells her story in her own words.
Lying on the sand, I watched as my husband John, then 33, taught our son Kiola, two, how to surf.
Kiola burst out in giggles every time the board reached the shore.
‘Again!’ he begged.
Three months pregnant with our second bub, in October 2002, life felt perfect.
Born in Nowra, NSW, my family had moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, when I was 10, where my dad, Richard, worked for the Australian embassy.
‘Don’t be too long.’
We were on a trip to Kuta, Bali, in April 1993 when, aged 19, I first met John, then 25.
Falling madly in love, I moved to Kuta to be with John in December that year.
In time I began working for the Australian Consulate General, and John opened a surfboard shop in Kuta.
On my 22nd birthday, we tied the knot surrounded by friends and family.
Now, I felt so lucky watching him share his passion with our son.
That afternoon, we dropped Kiola off with our nanny, before meeting some friends for dinner.
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Afterwards, John and the others organised to grab a few drinks.
But exhausted, I decided to turn in for the night.
‘Don’t be too long,’ I said, kissing John goodbye.
At home, I climbed into bed and drifted straight off to sleep.
Around 11pm, I woke to an explosion that shook the walls.
‘I’m going to look for him.’
I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a flaming ball of red fire filling the night sky.
‘What’s happening?’ Kiola’s nanny asked, terrified.
John wasn’t home yet, and when I called his mobile, his phone was off.
‘I’m going to look for him,’ I said.
As I rode towards Kuta Square on my motorbike, around 3km from our home, shrapnel covered the road, and thick smoke filled the air.
People were running in all directions, screaming, while others were carrying buckets of water. In the darkness I saw a man, his flesh hanging down from his arms.
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Something really bad had happened here…
Then I saw it.
The street beside the Sari Club was consumed by flames.
It looked like a bomb had gone off… but surely not.
It was our local haunt, and I knew John would have stopped in there for a drink.
Paralysed with fear, I prayed that John was anywhere else.
‘Have you seen my husband?’
Heading to the surf shop down that same road, I called John’s family who came to meet me.
Together with his dad, Tokijo, and brother, Johadi, I rode to all the clinics and hospitals around Kuta.
Searching for John in every room, I met eyes with the survivors who were battling for their lives.
‘Have you seen my husband?’ I asked doctors, nurses, and the people who’d been badly hurt in the explosion, showing them a photo.
But no-one could help us.
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At 5.30 the next morning, we returned home, hoping John would show up.
Shortly afterwards, I received a call from the Australian Consulate explaining the explosion had been caused by a bomb, which they believed was linked to a terrorist attack.
Shockingly, there’d been two others detonated – one in another local bar and another at the US Consulate in Denpasar.
Putting John’s name and photo on posters around town, I willed the universe to bring him back to me.
By day three, I was so desperate for answers, I met with a medium.
‘He’s wrapped up in a white sheet underneath other bodies at the morgue,’ she explained.
Distraught, I was admitted to hospital and placed on bed rest due to stress induced bleeding.
‘If you don’t rest you will lose the baby,’ doctors warned.
By now, Dad and my mum, Wendy, who’d been holidaying in Thailand, had flown in to be with me.
‘Take care of the baby. We’ll keep searching,’ Dad vowed.
I was back home 10 days later, and police had an update.
‘We think we’ve found John’s body,’ they said, explaining they’d need to check DNA samples from family to be sure.
It was six heartbreaking weeks before results confirmed our worst nightmare.
John had been killed in the deadly explosion.
Our friends had also died, along with 199 others, including 88 Aussies and 38 Indonesians.
My heart was shattered, but I had to push on for our kids.
The following February, I gave birth to a boy, who I named Jay, after his daddy.
Born 10 weeks early, he was whisked to the NICU.
Two months later Jay was finally strong enough to come home.
As the anniversary of John’s passing neared that October, we scattered his ashes along Kuta Beach.
And in November and December, three people were arrested for the attacks.
Hoping to keep his spirit alive, I kept John’s surf shop running and returned to work at the consulate.
But the stress took its toll and in 2007 I closed the shop.
A year later in November 2008, three Indonesian men aligned with the militant Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah – Imam Samudra, Mukhlas, and Amrozi – were executed by firing squad for the 2002 nightclub attacks. I was glad they could never hurt another soul again.
In May 2009 I had another son, Kaden.
In 2016, I reconnected with an old friend, Adi.
He loved my boys, then 16, 13 and seven – and riding Harley-Davidson motorbikes as much as I do – and met my pain with love.
In June last year on my 50th birthday, Adi asked me to marry him.
I know my precious John will be watching over me when we decide to tie the knot.
Twenty-three years on, not a day goes by that I don’t think of John.
Kiola, now 25, is the spitting image of his dad, and Jay, 22, was blessed with John’s smile.
A piece of him lives on in our boys and, for that, I’m thankful.
