MILILANI MAUKA — The dirty dishes are piling up in Tracy Chung's sink. The laundry's making a nice mountain, too.

All of it's unlike Chung.

She can't stand the mess. Nor can she do anything about it, it seems.

"It's as if my life stopped on Sunday morning," Chung said. "It's surreal. It's like time stood still."

She doesn't sleep and neither do her friends who also used to work at Aloha Airlines.

Chung just turned 40 and has been separated from her husband, Herb, for 18 months.

"Now I'm unemployed, too," she said, tearing up at her 5-year-old son's soccer practice yesterday.

Chung, a mother of two and owner of a $1,900-per-month mortgage on a four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home in Mililani Mauka, doesn't know where life is going to take her after Aloha Airlines.

Her Aloha career lasted 19 years, almost all of it in passenger service. It was the only real job she ever had after graduating from Kamehameha Schools in 1986.

When she lies awake, often crying, Chung doesn't fret about where she'll work next or how she'll get that job.

Mostly, she grieves for the people she'll no longer see every day.

Aloha Airlines was Chung's surrogate family.

"When I'm alone at night, I start thinking about the family that I left," she said. "You know that you're not going to be seeing each other every day anymore. It's very emotional, missing all of the people I worked with."

Tracy and Herb met at Aloha Airlines and he finally left two years ago because of the company's uncertainty.

In the past few days, he's been great with the kids and offered Tracy the support she needs, she said.

Herb's brother, Allen, helps displaced workers and is going to help Tracy with her resume and guide her through a job search.

In the meantime, Allen's also coaching Tracy through her emotions.

"It's an absolute roller coaster," she said. "He tells me, 'You need to mourn. You need to grieve.' "

Chung only finds solace when she looks ahead, to the day that she will work for another company that is not Aloha Airlines.

"I would never have left Aloha on my own," she said. "It was my family. Maybe this will be the silver lining in a dark cloud."