It has been a harrowing year for the family of a local man who went missing one year ago.

Dean Morrison, then a 44-year-old father of three, disappeared after leaving his workplace at Stump Lake Ranch on Oct. 22, 2013.

Morrison sometimes stayed with his sister on his days off, but by Oct. 28, she had still not heard from him and reported him missing to the RCMP.

RCMP conducted an air and ground search on Oct. 31, 2013, but came up empty.

A community-organized ground search on Nov. 13, 2013 also turned up nothing.

“There have been several searches and we haven’t come up with anything,” Morrison’s mother, Elizabeth Faber, said. “Everybody misses him and we just would like to know… It would be nice to hear or know something.”

Morrison’s missing person file has since been transferred to the Kamloops RCMP. He is described as Caucasian, five-foot-six, 140 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a quilted black jacket and work pants.

Anyone with information on Morrison’s disappearance is asked to contact the Kamloops RCMP at 250-314-1800.

In the year since Morrison’s disappearance, the family has experienced more hardship. His sister, Michelle, passed away in late August.

“My daughter and my son — I lost both of them within one year,” Faber said.

The day before her service, Michelle’s 23-year-old son Jordan fell ill and was taken to hospital. He spent two weeks in the hospital with meningitis and left the hospital with only partial vision.

Faber said doctors told her the meningitis may have provoked a dormant degenerative disease.

Jordan is now staying with his grandmother in Vancouver and is still trying to recover his eyesight.

“Almost every day, we’ve been to doctor’s offices in Vancouver,” she said.

Faber said recovering Jordan’s eyesight is a priority for the family right now.

“Sometimes it just helps to take the focus off something else,” she said.

Faber said her family is thankful for all of the support they’ve received over the last year. Still, she said staying strong is tough.

“There’s just so much trauma in the family. It’s hard to deal with it all.”