The mother of missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague says she is “not searching for closure” and has to find a way of dealing with her son not being here every day.
It’s been four years since the airman went missing in Bury St Edmunds in 2016, and Nicola Urquhart told this newspaper she will never get the answers to make his disappearance any easier.
Corrie, who was stationed at RAF Honington, was last seen on CCTV entering a bin loading area behind a row of shops in Bury on Saturday, September 24, 2016, after a night out.
A multi-million pound investigation, which included two searches of a landfill in Milton, Cambridgeshire, yielded no trace of the RAF gunner, who was aged 23 at the time he went missing.
Following recent speculation, Suffolk police were able to confirm that human bones found in a Sudbury river on August 27 were not those of Corrie.
MORE: Human remains found in Sudbury are NOT Corrie’s, says mumMr Urquhart, who works as a police officer in Scotland, said: “It’s a difficult thing, I know when I’ve worked with families who have lost somebody and I’ve used those words myself about people wanting or needing to have closure, and I certainly cannot and would not speak for anyone else, but for me there is no such thing as closure.
“I think people say it to try to be helpful and to show that they care, but really you just need someone to be there and listen to you if you need to talk.
“I have to find a way of dealing with my son not being here every day.
“I’m never going to get answers that are going to make that any easier to deal with. He’s not here.
“It’s finding a way of being able to enjoy life, laugh, cry, spend time with my family, make more memories and keep remembering Corrie.
“I’m not searching for closure, it’s not something that I need. We’re just looking to be able to live and remember Corrie.”
MORE: Mother of missing Corrie McKeague says she is ready to start searching againCorrie would have celebrated his 27th birthday on September 16, and Mrs Urquhart added that she finds birthdays more difficult than missing anniversaries.
“I know it sounds bizarre because it’s a four-year anniversary but it’s no different to every single day,” she said.
“Corrie’s still not here every day and it being one-year, two years, four years, or ten years – I don’t think that makes much of a difference.
“I think it’s more the fact that it’s another year that he’s not been able to enjoy his birthday and that’s probably harder to deal with than it is the anniversary of him going missing.”
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