Atlantic Voice: What happens to families when people disappear?

You might be surprised by the number of families in our region living with lost loved ones — people who were living ordinary lives, doing routine things, until it would seem they went "poof" into thin air.

Left behind are families, fathers, mothers, children, siblings, and friends.

Their lives have been changed forever. They are unable to forget as they wait, day after day and year after year, for answers they need. Answers they dread. Answers that may never come.

Tom Cook has been living the nightmare for 16 years. 

"He was always happy. A happy little boy. Always wanted someone around him. Even playing with his toys he always wanted somebody there," said Cook about his son, Troy, who disappeared on June 11, 1998.

Troy was 19.

He had just moved into a new apartment at 1 Victoria St. in Truro. He'd spent the previous evening at his parents's place.

Tom was the last person to see him, as he dropped Troy at the apartment around 10 that morning.

Troy — or someone sounding like him — called the Superstore in Truro about a half hour later to say he was sick and wouldn't be in to work that day.

The call came from the Tim Hortons in Bible Hill, leaving Tom puzzled about how his son got there and why he was there at all. Tom believes his son met with foul play.

"After almost 17 years, I know he's gone. I know in my heart somebody did take him. Troy did not disappear on his own. It's been a hard 16 years and my life stopped in '98. I'm there for my youngest son, Michael. I work, but that's my life: looking for Troy and I'll never stop until I find him," says Tom. 

Ever since Troy disappeared, Tom has plastered pictures of him on his car windows, hoping they will jog someone's memory or their conscience.  

"I think if I don't do it, who is going to do it? I know the police they'll keep trying but, I mean, with me out there every day talking to people, still putting posters out — until  I can't walk, I'll do it."

He says all he wants now is to find his son's remains and bury them in a place where he can go and visit with him. 

'Changed my life forever'

Tom Cook follows other missing persons cases, like that of Arlene McLean. She was just 28 years old when she left her home in Eastern Passage around 8:30 on the night of of Sept. 8, 1999.

She and her common law partner, Cliff Hall, lived in the duplex at 1 Melrose Pl. with their eight-year-old son, Kevin.

Cliff says Arlene was devoted to their son and worked at home as a babysitter so she could be there with Kevin, who is now 23.

"I actually don't remember a whole lot. I don't have a lot of specific memories, but I remember general characteristics about what she was like. She was very happy, very loving, very cheery," Kevin said.

He does have memories of the two of them making peanut butter and jam sandwiches. He also remembers that his mother loved to play video games. 

The loss of his mother, which he said "changed my life forever", left him with a deep empathy for others. 

"I just remember having a much broader perspective on life after that happened. I remember I'd always watch TV and see the commercials for starving kids in Africa. I always remember just being like, that sucks. I can't believe that exists and that's a thing that's going on," said Kevin.

"I remember when she left, me being like ... 'I'm one of those people experiencing something really bad and that most people don't experience. Not that I could relate to starving kids in Africa, but it just gave me a real sense of tragedy and pain in life. I was very aware of that at that age and I never took other kids seriously."

Kevin's father, Cliff Hall, still finds it hard to talk about Arlene's disappearance.

He said they'd been discussing a possible break up the night she disappeared. She received a phone call from a friend and then said she was going for a drive.

She took only her purse and the clothes she was wearing, got into her 1993 green, four door Hyundai Elantra and neither she, nor the car, have been since since.

Unlike missing persons cases today, the Arlene McLean disappearance didn't get widespread coverage in the media but Cliff Hall and his friends put up posters wherever they could.

'There's always 'What if this? What if that?''

A friend loaned him a car and he spent countless hours driving around, looking for Arlene. He even wrote to America's Most Wanted, hoping they would feature her disappearance on the show. He received a "Thank You" letter but that was all.

Fifteen years later, he's still not sure what to think.

"It was awhile before I would think to myself that she had died, but after a long time passed, people talking to you trying to convince you of that so you believe it, then for whatever reason it's up and down sometimes. Then you come up with reasons why she would be alive. Yeah, it's pretty much been like that for 15 years," he said.

Kevin says he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about what happened to his mother. "That's kind of a waste of thought after awhile, a waste of space in my mind to dwell on that," he said.

His father continues to wonder. "There's always 'What if this? What if that?' I realized a long time ago I was doing it but it doesn't help, doesn't change anything," he said. 

Tom Cook asks himself "what if" questions, as well. The day he dropped Troy at the apartment he was in a rush and didn't pull into the apartment driveway as he usually did, instead letting him out around the corner.

He wonders if he had pulled into the driveway, if he would have seen someone or something. Now, though, he just wants his son back.

"The biggest thing is when remains are found and we don't know who they are we have to sit on pins and needles waiting until they determine who it is and that's the hard part. Some family's going to get bad news and we're waiting right there with them. It's hard. It's really hard," says Tom.

Hear more about what these families deal with, in CBC reporter Yvonne Colbert's documentary on Atlantic Voice.