After someone you love has died, the strands of grief are often tugged by special dates.

Birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day and other happy occasions can be triggers for sadness. An empty seat at Christmas lunch is a poignant reminder that someone who should be there, isn't.

Bruce McEachen has been the public face of the 185 families who lost someone they loved in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

He's been the media spokesperson, the chairperson of the Earthquake Family Trust and devoted countless hours to seeing the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial - the Memorial Wall - come to fruition.

He and his close-knit family - wife Jeanette, and daughter Sarah - have spent seven years fighting to "find the truth and get justice" for their son and brother.

Matthew McEachen was killed by falling masonry as he tried to flee the Southern Ink building in the February 22, 2011 earthquake.

The building had earlier suffered damage to its exterior walls in the 7.1 magnitude September 2010 earthquake, and had been given a yellow placard by structural engineers.

To go through the trauma of losing your child, then the pursuit of justice while you're grieving...

"You've got to go through it over six, nearly seven years, that's the beast that is draining for a lot of the families," Bruce says, trailing off.

As we sit together on the balcony of the Wigram business he manages on a sunny Monday morning, Bruce reveals the private face of his grief.

We have been talking for about half an hour when the tears spring to his eyes.

"Matthew was a bass player in a death metal band, a tattoo artist with perfect teeth and nice manners," he says. "He was a little guy... kind. Everyone who knew him said he had an old soul."

"It's not the police's fault," he says. "The guys doing the actual work themselves worked their butts off but the latte drinkers at the Crown Law office, unfortunately they don't seem to have much in the way of courage or understand that in cases of the Christchurch earthquake where 185 people died, there needs to be a level of accountability."