The little baby 'Pa' never met
NIKKI Stevenson still holds a glimmer of hope that her dad, Paul, will burst through the door any day now and the past five months of heartache will be eased just by seeing his face.
But the truth is no one has seen Mr Stevenson since he vanished after failing to return home from a motorbike ride near Mt Perry on March 11.
"It's not something you ever thought would happen to your family," Miss Stevenson told the NewsMail yesterday, which marked the start of Missing Persons Week.
Mr Stevenson is just one of 6000 people who go missing in Queensland each year.
His daughter said she and her family - mum Julie and brother Tom - were taking it one day at a time.
"You still imagine that he's still going to walk in the back door," she said.
What makes it harder for Miss Stevenson is that her dad missed the birth of her baby, Mia Jane, who would have been his first grandchild.
"Dad was very excited about being a grandfather - he'd be over the moon," she said.
"He was going to be 'Pa'."
Miss Stevenson said the family was desperate to find answers.
"You don't know how to express yourself - you can't feel anything because you don't know," she said.
"If we could find something out it would make life a lot easier in one way."
That agonising wait for answers is something Bundaberg man Mick Peet also understands.
Mr Peet's daughter, Lateesha Nolan, went missing in Dubbo in 2005 and he has spent the past seven years trying to find out what happened to her.
"It's been pretty awful - to lose your daughter that you've seen grow up," he said.
Mr Peet has never stopped looking for his daughter, even after the man suspected of her disappearance, fugitive Malcolm Naden, was captured in March.
"I'll never get closure until her body is found and she can be given a proper burial," he said.
