More than a year and a half has passed since his son was last seen in far north Queensland.
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And Jayden Penno-Tompsett's dad says life has gotten no easier without any answers as to how or why the 22-year-old vanished about 130km from Townsville.
"It just doesn't end," Brendan Tompsett told the Newcastle Herald to mark this year's National Missing Persons Week.
"You go to bed with it, you wake up with it, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it. It's not like you can move forward because there are no answers and when there are no answers you don't settle.
"It's like Groundhog Day every single day and it doesn't get easier. But you wake up every morning and there is still life to do."
Jayden, who lived in Birmingham Gardens, was travelling north with mates to celebrate New Year's Eve in Cairns when he disappeared before the group reached their destination.
He was last seen at the rural town of Charters Towers in the early hours of December 31, 2017.
In the days after he vanished, Queensland Police released CCTV images which showed the young man at a roadhouse in the town.
His travelling companions did not report him missing to police until four days after they last saw him.
Jayden is one of more than a dozen Hunter residents who are currently classified as missing.
Mr Tompsett said he had not been made aware of any progress in the search for his son, who still looms large in his life.
"I went on holiday recently and I picked up the phone to talk to him because I wanted to tell him about it," he said.
"Say we found out he passed, it's not going to make it any easier but you've got something to go and cry about. It's just sad, it's really sad.
"[The police] reaction at the beginning, how they carried out their initial search, all the rest of it, my communication with them, I can't fault them. I believe they've been very thorough."
National Missing Persons Week is an Australian Federal Police initiative held each year.
Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000
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