For in a meeting with Solid Energy, the state-owned coal-miner which has conditionally agreed to take over the mine, members of the families or their representatives were told it was highly unlikely the remains of their loved ones would ever be recovered from the site of the tragic explosions which claimed their lives.
Those remains would, with 90% to 95% likelihood, stay enclosed in the mine - unless it was clear that a recovery operation could still be mounted with no significant danger to the rescuers. It was the prospect of further loss of life - and being directly told as much by representatives of Solid Energy - that seems to have persuaded the deceased miners' families to accept the most heart-wrenching of propositions: that Pike River was likely to remain a tomb for their sons and brothers, fathers and uncles in perpetuity.
Some are still refusing to accept this and remain committed to pushing for the retrieval of whatever physical remains there might still be, as is their right, but most appear to have decided, reluctantly, to continue.
This in itself is a courageous decision, which, regardless of the outcome of the royal commission into the tragedy, should allow them to move on with their lives. This is not to say they will leave their memories behind, encased in the past and underground in the ill-fated mine, rather that perhaps now, desisting from the long and combative battle to recover the bodies, they can properly grieve for their loved ones.
While it may be admirable that in similar tragedies there are those who seem constitutionally incapable of "letting go" - and while it is certainly not the place of those untouched by such personal travesty to pass judgment on how individuals choose to face their losses - there comes a point in time when the toll exacted on the survivors is destructive. In the common language of fiction or pop-psychology, such events, if not worked through and released, can "eat away" at people until every aspect of their existence concerns itself with tragedy - indeed is overtaken by it.
Be that as it may, the tragic events of November 2010 - and the ramifications surrounding them - have yet to be concluded.
The report of the royal commission which is due to deliver its findings on circumstances surrounding the tragedy will write a definitive chapter in this history.
Charged with determining the cause of the explosions, the likely cause of death of the 29 miners, and with investigating the management and operations, in particular those relating to health and safety at the mine, this report will be eagerly awaited not only by those intimately connected to the disaster, but by all New Zealanders, most of whom were deeply affected by the terrible events at Pike River.
A great deal of evidence has, of course, been aired before the commission and in associated media reporting a flavour of this has been ascertained. Safety practices at the mine, and the overarching legislative safety environment, are certain to receive close attention in the report, but it already seems abundantly clear that this was compromised at Pike River.
This will be of little comfort to the families of the dead miners.
But the final report should point the way to a future in which the potential for such tragedies is much reduced. Whether they can ever be entirely eliminated is another matter, for underground mining is by its very nature dangerous and risky.
But if the result is such that significant new measures - including safety legislation towards the reinstatement of a mines safety inspectorate - were introduced to guard against the possibility, then the families of the Pike River 29 will have something tangible to show from their long, painful and sorrowful vigil.
