It seems silly to be crying for boy I didn’t know and a family I’ve never met.

Yet for nine years I’ve followed their tragic story.

Daniel Morcombe was a 13-year-old boy who went to a catch a bus to go shopping for  Christmas presents for his family. He never got on the bus.

On that day his parents Bruce and Denise Morcombe vowed to never give up until they found him. They stayed true to that promise.

They created the Daniel Morcombe Foundation to raise awareness of child protection, help victims of crime and continue the search for Daniel. The foundation created a child safety curriculum and the Morcombe’s worked tirelessly to promote it in schools.

When Daniel first went missing I remember hugging my 3 year-old and 6 year-old and wondering how you keep them safe as they grow older and venture out into the world.  Next month my youngest will be the same age as Daniel was went he went missing. My eldest is already older than he ever got to be.

There was a telecast one night where viewers were asked to flick their lights on and off to show you remembered Daniel. Denise was afraid the cameras  would cut to the houses and nobody would hit their switches. Brisbane is not on the Sunshine Coast but the girls and I flicked our lights anyway. Thankfully, many others did too.

Bruce and Denise where just an ordinary couple, with a family of boys, Daniel, his twin, Bradley and their elder brother Dean. Over the past nine years they have had to learn media skills, the ins and outs of missing persons investigations, fundraising, and now the vagaries of the legal system. They have done it with courage, dignity and commitment.

In August last year a man was arrested for Daniel’s abduction and murder. Shortly after, a search of  a property uncovered Daniel’s remains. As the Morcombe’s fronted up to the press conference, Denise’s face showed every second of the heartbreak of the last nine years. The destruction of that secret hope she had held deep in her heart that maybe one day Daniel would be found alive played out in her eyes as she struggled for composure. It was final now. Her smiling boy wasn’t coming home.

The committal hearing has begun and will be reconvened in February. Now the family face the accused in court.

Hundreds of people go missing every year. Why one particular boy, one particular family captures the heart of the community is unclear. Perhaps the boy’s hauntingly beautiful eyes and cheeky smile? The dogged determination of his Mum and Dad to not let him be forgotten? Their determination to help others? Or perhaps it is the fact that such an ordinary family echos your own?

Today, after nine long years of anguish, the Morcombe family will get to lay Daniel to rest. They have asked mourners to wear a splash of red (the colour of the t-shirt Daniel was wearing when he disappeared) and rather than flowers they would like people to donate to the Daniel Morcombe Foundation to help continue work in raising awareness of child safety issues and supporting  the victims of crime (particularly children).

RIP Daniel.