Transcript of 12: Episode 12: Dreaming

For over two decades, Niam's family has done everything they could to keep searching for her. While they never give up hope, they've had to learn to live with the loss, or as Fannula says, to move forward with it. They talk about Niam and keep her memory alive. When Fannula spoke with Niam's friend Lisa, who was in Batlo with her just before she went missing, both women discovered they still dream of Niam. In her dreams, Lisa sees Niam. She's there, but she's silent.

My dreams were really annoying because she'll never talk to me in them. Do you have that dream, too? She's always there. If I talk to her, ask her a question, she'll look at me. She just looks at me. I think there's times where I get really angry at her because I want her to speak to me. Then there's other times where I don't feel that, but she never talks to me, but she's present.

Vanuula has similar dreams of her sister Yeah, that's so freaky that you said that.

I haven't had it recently, but I have a recurring dream that sometimes we're in different places, but it's exactly the same. She just doesn't talk. She She's there. She's just near me, aged 18. I'll be like, Where have you been? Do you have any idea how worried we've been? Seriously, Mom and dad are beside themselves. She just doesn't talk. Doesn't answer.

Yeah, that sounds exactly the same. Different locations. I might hear her laugh or make sounds. I might even see that she's maybe interacting with other people, but I can't hear it. Then when I happen to have an interaction with her, if I happen to in the dream, because sometimes I can't, she won't talk to me. She won't She silenced.

Vanilla spoke to Brodie, who was also with Niam on her fruit picking adventure to Batlo. While these friends of Niam's have all grown older, Niam herself seems frozen at 18.

I want to say that Niam was special, and she had a lot to offer. And it's really, really unfortunate that something like this happened. It's just really unfair, and it couldn't have happened to a better person, really. And whatever happened or whoever stole her opportunities away from her, it's just a shame. That's Yeah. I miss her.

Me too. For Niam's young and carefree friends, her loss was the event that made them all grow up. For the country kids from Armadale, it all came to a halt when Niam was lost.

I think that event has actually really shaped all of us in so many ways. It was quite a shocking, terrible thing to happen. I certainly know that she's quite present in my life in the sense that the memories, what happened to her, it's really... She's still with us because she was such a significant person in our lives. What happened to her, in a sense, is a cautionary tale that no one... We, of course, wish that she was still here and with us, but perhaps it led all of us to make better choices going forward from there. I think now we live in a world where we are more wary, generally. I think that what happened would not necessarily happen now. Not that it couldn't, but it's just that we were living in a time where there was no mobile phones, where there was less stranger danger, all that stuff. We were young, we were 18 and being silly.

Yeah, okay. I just don't think it would have happened now.

I don't think so either.

If you all had smartphones- I know. And social media and all the perils that come with that, but I actually think- Yeah, I agree.

When Lisa and Fennula spoke, it was in Niam's childhood home in Armadale. Being there brought back memories.

I think it's funny you keep moving through your life, and then there's these times where you revisit it and And I'm glad I could come here because this place, like I spent a lot of time here and have not been here for ages, but it's still the table still in the same spot. Everything's still the same. And so I feel like this was the right place to come and talk about Niam. I would have loved to have shared more life with her, but I'm grateful for the time I got. We had a lot of really fun times together. We went diving a lot and we went camping. The number of times we put all the lights on in this lounge and did like dancing to bad '80s music. When she was working at the pizza shop and we'd get pizza and we'd just being silly rat bags. But we were It was being lots of fun. We'd dress up and do silly things. We had lots of good times. So, yeah, we just tried to hold on to the good memories.

While Naam's loss hit everyone hard, we can only Can't imagine what it has been like for her parents, Anne and Brian. They always look so stoic and brave in media appearances. Anne says they've coped, but it has never been easy.

I had to deal with that and know that that was underneath all that was going on, and then try and help the kids cope. But I think they've done excellently, and partly because we all talk to each other as much as we can and get help, and because they've all been fortunate enough to have very supportive friends from school and so on. I think that's how we've managed to cope with the emotional side of it all, but it's still with you forever. None of us, I think, like to use the term closure because it's totally meaningless. You don't have closure. Nothing stops it. Nothing Everything makes it go away. It's part of your life, and you cope with it, and you live with it. We've always focused on celebrating the inspiration we have from NIV. They're all, all of our children are inspirations to us. The things they do, they are just wonderful. So we think we're just so fortunate. They're all adventurous. They stand up for what's right. They me, kneecap people who aren't doing the right thing. Politely, of course. Anyway, so I think we've coped on the whole very well with the emotional side of it all.

But it's never easy, and it's never going to be easy.

For Brian, staying positive did not stop the depression he suffered, but did help him find a way forward. He is open about seeking help to manage it.

I have suffered from depression since that time, about six months after that time. I found that I needed to actually have some medical help with depression. That, in a sense, has helped a lot. A friend who's a well-qualified psychologist said me at one stage that one of the features of depression is that you have a strong sense of responsibility. In other words, you the person who has to do something about it. Now, that actually puts more pressure on yourself. So the way around that is to be positive and look ahead and plan to see how you can help to deal with the situation or to solve the problem. And even now, having something to plan ahead to, I find, is a purposeful way of viewing life.

Brian is thankful for all of the people who have offered to help over the years.

So we've had people people like that all the time who've come forward and made suggestions if they can or offered help where they can. It's heartening, even if it doesn't solve the problem, but it's better than not getting any help, I guess. You need something to keep you motivated to keep going. The unanswered question is the main motivation, but the encouragement is given by the people who've tried to help in whatever way they can.

For Anne, her focus was the rest of the family.

Having to deal with the emotional side for... I wasn't so concerned about my welfare because I was more focused on the rest of the family and helping them deal with it all because I thought, I think what's helped me is my faith. I have a photograph, a calligraphy thing up there of a quote from Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese poet about your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of the whole globe, in a sense. And so I've been able to focus on the positive. When you give birth to a child, any child, you don't know what package you're getting, and you don't know for how long you have that package. So you have to face up to that from the very beginning. So it's something that you celebrate every day, all of your life and all of their lives. But you also know that things happen and that you aren't the only person on the planet who has things like this happen.

It is worth reciting the poem that has brought Anne so much comfort. It's called On Children by Khalil Jibran. Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the blows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness, for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.

If you feel a bit as if you're wallowing in self-pity, all you have to do is have a look around you and see that there are people who are far worse off. So you keep positive. I'm a positive person. And one of the things I'm always inspired by is candles. And there's an ancient saying in multiple cultures across the globe, there's no darkness, dark enough to put out the light of one small candle. So I light a candle every day for Niams and for us and for everybody out there.

While her loss is as real to her family now as it was when she went missing back in 2002, the family is well aware that Niams' disappearance is outside the living memory of anyone under the age of about 25. Older people from the area will remember her, but with this podcast, any young bushwalkers, campers, hunters, SES volunteers, or forest rangers who work in the area can be on the look out for Niam's remains or her belongings, her backpack, clothes, camping equipment, discmen, CDs, photography gear. For a full list of Niam's property, including serial numbers, please visit our website at missingniam. Com. That's missing niamh. Com. Imagine if you were working, camping, or bush walking in the area and came across a bunch of old CDs buried in the bush. For Paula talks with Steve Rose about getting the case back into the public awareness.

Again, that's why I keep saying, 18 years ago, a 26-year-old person was six or seven years of age. They wouldn't have known anything about me and me going missing, really. But those 25-year-olds now are operating machinery, working in forestry, cutting down trees, doing all sorts of things. It's time to get the interest back up again, just in case. People that were 50 years of age are probably retired now. They're the ones that have all the knowledge because they live through that period of time. Personally, I just I think if anybody knows anything, relative names, disappearance, please tell the police, allow the family some closure. If you are currently working in the timber industry or forestry industry, In the areas between Tumut and Tumberumba, please be vigilant and keep an eye out for any unusual clothing, or perhaps even human remains at this stage, and report what you see.

Now, here's where we need your help. If you or anyone you know was in Gingellic or in Batlo at the time and remembers Niam, Jack, or Garth, or remembers seeing the Hearse, please come forward and talk to us. You could hold a missing piece of the puzzle. It is vital to remember that you may not realize what you saw was important, but please come forward anyway. We have already located several people who told us before their interview started that they didn't know anything, but then gave us really useful information. Everything we find out adds another piece to the puzzle. If we find enough pieces, we may find neum. Some people might not come forward because they don't think what they know is relevant or assume what they know is already known by police. This may not be the case, so we urge you to get in touch anyway. Each piece of information, no matter how small, can help. Other friends and acquaintances of Niam who were at Batlo Caravan Park, you may have important information. Did you know Jack Nicholson from the fruit picking scene, even if it wasn't in Batlo? Pickers and backpackers from all over the world were in Batlo and Gingelik on the Easter long weekend of 2002.

Are you one of the people we've heard who might have been with the Jack and Garth? You can reach us at missingnieam. Com. That's missingnieam. Com. The name Nieam, or Nib, in the traditional pronunciation, comes from an ancient Irish story about a young warrior named O'Sheen, who fell in love with a beautiful princess called Nib. Together, they left his world for the fairy world of Tiana Nog, where time stood still. When O'Sheen missed his family and begged to visit home, Nib warned him not to alight from his horse. When he ignored the warning and set foot upon the Earth, he became ancient because 300 years had passed in his old world. Legend had it that the beautiful Princess Nive still roamed the countryside on her white horse, searching for her husband. The May property in Armadale was named Tiana Nog to Wana Niam, Forever Young. Just like the story. They made a sign with the name for their Frank made.

It's one of those legends where the beautiful Nive went off with O'Sheen to the land of Tíananog, which is the land of everlasting youth. So I just thought, That's fairly appropriate. I suggested that we put that there as the name for the property here because a lot of people have names that have some significance for them in some way. I thought, Well, that's for all of us. So this is us. We're all forever useful.