In the late afternoon sun at a cemetery on the outskirts of Christchurch, a grieving mother is on her knees at her son's grave, whispering words of love to a man who went to pray one Friday and never came home.

Janna Ezat's 35-year-old son Hussein Al-Umari was one of 51 people killed at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.

Janna recently dreamed of her son, and she is desperate to see him again.

"Please do it again. I love you. Visit me again please," she says at her son's final resting place.

Hussein was just 35 when he died protecting others during the attack on the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch. ( ABC News: Mitchell Woolnough )

Beside her, Janna's husband, Hazim Al-Umari, places his hands on the grass now growing over the plot.

"I always feel his warmth when I do this," he explains.

Hussein was one of 45 victims of the attacks buried at the Memorial Park Cemetery on New Zealand's south island.

Janna and Hazim are finding the first anniversary of their son's death more difficult than they expected. ( ABC News: Mitchell Woolnough )

The couple, originally from Iraq, say visiting Hussein's grave gives them strength.

As they prepare to mark the first anniversary of his death, they need that more than ever.

"I thought in one year I will be ok. But I am facing the opposite," Janna says.

Janna Ezat sometimes dreams of her son Hussein Al-Umari, who died at the Al Noor mosque in March 2019. ( Supplied: Janna Ezat )

"I don't know how I am going to survive," she says.

Hazim Al-Umari agrees.

The first months after his only son's death were a blur of paperwork and formalities.

"When things settled down, that's when it started to hurt more," Hazim says.

The loss of Hussein has left a gaping hole in the lives of the couple and their daughter, 34-year-old Aya.

Aya Al-Umari lost her brother Hussein in the Christchurch attacks. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

Hussein was said to have forfeited his chance to escape from the mosque as the gunman opened fire, opting to try to help others and to confront the shooter.

The family is fiercely proud of his actions.

To them and their community he is a martyr. And yet now and then, they wish it wasn't so.

"There are times that I think about that question, like 'why didn't you run away? Why did you leave me so soon Hussein?'," Aya says.

Aya says her brother Hussein Al-Umari was a hero, but she sometimes wishes he had just run away during the attack. ( Supplied: Janna Ezat )

"But then it's overcome by other thoughts — like everything happens for a reason. He didn't run away and we are left behind. But we are left behind for a reason."

That reason, she says, is to spread a message: "hate is not ok".

'It's going to take a long time if ever we will get over it'

Sleep doesn't come easily anymore for Mohammed Feroze Ditta.

Mohammed was shot three times in the legs during the attack on the Al Noor mosque. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

"I just can't sleep. Too much is happening," he says.

"I still hear those screams at night. How do you forget that?"

Mohammed Feroze was in the Al Noor mosque that fateful Friday, sitting at the back of the main room, not knowing that so many of those he greeted as they walked past would never leave.

When the gunman entered he rushed towards a side door, but it wouldn't open.

He thinks now it was because he and his fellow worshippers were so panicked that they just couldn't open the latch.

In the end, they smashed the door and he tried to tumble out, but got stuck halfway.

When the gunman sprayed the room with bullets, he sustained three wounds to his calf.

Mohammed escaped through this side-door at the mosque, but was caught in the panic. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

People on top of him died and Mohammed Feroze lay there drenched in blood for what seemed like an eternity.

A long period of rehabilitation and reconstructive surgery followed, but the nerve damage remains and the 54-year-old hasn't been able to return to work as a trucking contractor.

He and other victims have had support this year, but he worries that after the first anniversary things might start to dry up.

The psychological wounds run deep too.

"Nothing prepares you for it," he says.

Mohammed survived the shooting, but cannot forget the screams of those who died around him. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

For Mohammed Feroze Ditta, counselling hasn't helped much.

"As you are talking through you get wound up, you get tense and you are reliving the day again, and I think that's not helpful," he says.

"It's going to take a long, long time if ever we will get over it."

The Al Noor mosque is still open for Muslims to worship. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

A year on the mosque is again "a place of solace" for the father of two grown-up daughters, but the terror waged upon it is always on his mind.

"It's fresh, new coat of paint, new carpets. What's hiding is the blood and the tears under the carpet … beneath it still lies that pain and anguish."

'Every day in everything, I miss them'

A year on from the attacks Ambreen Naeem's thoughts are increasingly on the life she led before everything changed in an instant.

Since losing her husband and oldest son, Ambreen Naeem has had to keep her remaining family together. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

"I keep on thinking about that — how it was before, and how our life is now," she says.

Ambreen Naeem lost her husband Rashid Naeem, and 21-year-old son Talha in the Christchurch shootings.

She has two surviving children, one now 20, and the baby of the family, a 6-year-old boy.

She particularly remembers the times before the attacks when they all were together as a big, playful family.

"He always made things so exciting for him," she says of her husband Rashid, a 50-year-old business studies tutor, originally from Pakistan.

Ambreen and Naeem Rashid on their wedding day in 1996. ( Supplied: Ambreen Naeem )

"Every day, in everything, I miss them. I remember the cheer and the happiness in our house."

Since she lost her husband and son, Ambreen has been trying to fill the gaps they left behind.

She has lots of support from Muslim and non-Muslim friends, who invite her over and help with errands.

She's learning to drive since she no longer has Rashid and Talha to pick her up.

But it will never again be normal.

"Without them it's incomplete, but I am trying my best," Ambreen says.

Like many of the victims' families she thinks her loved ones died for a reason: so that a deadly attack on New Zealand's Muslim community never happens again.

Ambreen has adapted her life since her husband died in the Christchurch massacre. ( ABC News: Kevin Nguyen )

"Obviously things like what happened [are] because of some flaws or some things that went wrong," she says.

"If you mend them, it could be better. It is better to find the solutions."

Ambreen Naeem wants to play her part by speaking out and representing her community.

"I think it's good to have a voice. If have the ability to talk, then why shouldn't I?"