Bellambi mum's heartache over lost daughter

A Bellambi mother has lived every parent's nightmare for the past 20 years - wondering if she'll ever see her daughter again.Dianne* said there was not a day that went by when she did not think of her daughter, Tanya Marie Nicholls, or worry about her welfare."There's always the constant questions. Every winter I think, 'Is my daughter cold? Is she hungry? Is she being abused - or worse?' "Tanya is one of 34 long-term missing persons from the Illawarra highlighted for 2008 Missing Persons Week.Dianne, who has four children, said her daughter fell in with the wrong crowd at age 15 and rebellious arguments followed before she disappeared in September 1988."There were some mother-daughter disagreements - 'You're not doing that', 'I'll do what I like' sort of thing," Dianne said."We were called by Kings Cross police one night just before she disappeared. They'd picked her up."I brought her home. I got up the next morning and she was gone."She came back four days later, went to stay at her grandparents at Fairy Meadow and disappeared from there."Myself and my ex-husband, Tanya's father, we scoured Kings Cross, Oxford St, all those different places. We haven't seen or heard from her since."Night after night ... I think, she can't be deceased, they don't just grab bodies and put them in the ground ... but what if she died in hospital under another name?"In recent years, health battles including breast cancer and a slight heart attack have left Dianne, 54, nervous about her own mortality."If I die, I want to die knowing it's ended. That she's either been put to rest or she's been found."Tanya's younger sister, Vanessa, now a mother of four, said she thought about her sister and the things they never got a chance to share.Tanya has two distinctive tattoos - a dragon on the back of her right shoulder and a small insect on her right shoulder blade. She has been known to go by the name Marie Ann Owen.Dianne said it was important Tanya understood that she was loved."I want her to know that I love her and I want to hear anything," she said."She has to know she is loved and missed."* Dianne's surname has been withheld at the family's request.