K'JIPUKTUK (Halifax) - It is the pain no parent should have to experience.
“I feel like I’m living in a nightmare,” said Terry Miller as she choked back tears, speaking to a crowd gathered at a vigil for her missing daughter.
“My heart cannot find rest while she is gone. Everything has lost it’s colour since she is not here. I miss my daughter … I feel like I am nothing with out her.”
Hundreds gathered at Grand Parade in front of City Hall Tuesday evening to show their support at a vigil for Catherine (Catie) Miller, who disappeared four weeks ago.
Family, friends, and community members held signs with the messages: “you are in our hearts,” “praying for your safe return.”
Candlelight glowed on their faces as they listened to Catie’s parents tell stories of their daughter, and together they joined in song, singing the hymn Amazing Grace as sun fell further from the evening sky.
“When I bought supper, (people) used to ask, ‘hi, how are you?’ That used to be an easy answer to give. Now, under these circumstances, you really have to think,” said Catie's father, John Miller.
His daughter has not been seen or heard from since July 15.
The 29-year-old trained electrician and mother of a three-and-a-half-year old son, Oliver, called a taxi to her Dartmouth apartment on Windmill Rd., and then vanished.
On Tuesday, Miller said Halifax police confirmed that a cellphone was turned in around three o’clock, and is related to Catie’s disappearance.
He is hoping this leads to the first clue as to what's happened, but is preparing for the worst.
“Usually twenty-somethings have to have their cell phone (ripped) from their hands. If she’s separated from her cell phone this may not be good,” he said.
“You just don’t know.”
He is currently trying to launch a national campaign through social media and by connecting with out-of-province businesses to spread information about his daughter and to encourage people to come forward if they have knowledge of her whereabouts.
“We don’t know where she is, so we have to look everywhere,” he says.
Miller called Tuesday’s vigil heartwarming, saying the outpouring of community support has helped him feel better even though hard times are ahead.
Elayne Pink was one of event's organizers, and has been helping the Miller family in their search. She has never met Catie or known her parents until she discovered their story on Facebook one week ago.
“It was just a sad situation of somebody in my area,” she said.
On Sunday, the family and a team of community volunteers will hold a door-to-door search in north end Dartmouth in the hopes that somebody will be able to shed some light on Catie's disappearance.
“I’ve not given up hope that our daughter will return,” Miller's mother told the crowd.
