TOMORROW is Mother's Day and, just as she has for the past nine years, Joan Lawrence will pray that a card will arrive from her beloved daughter Claudia.

Joan will dig out the box of old cards she received from Claudia in the years before she vanished, display them on the mantelpiece of her North Yorkshire home, and cling on to the hope that she might still be alive.

The Northern Echo: MISSING: Claudia Lawrence

Missing: Claudia Lawrence, a chef at York University

"It helps me to hold them and look at them and see her name," says Joan, originally from Darlington but now living in Malton.

It was this weekend nine years ago that Joan first received the news that Claudia, a 35-year-old chef at York University, had gone missing. There has been no news of her since.

Back in 2009, Claudia had told her mother that she would have to work on Mother's Day, so Joan had gone to spend the weekend in the Peak District with her eldest daughter, Ali. The nightmare began at teatime on Friday, when Joan's former husband Peter telephoned to say Claudia had gone missing and hadn't been seen for two days.

Two hours later, Detective Chief Inspector Lucy Pope, who by coincidence had gone to school with Claudia, telephoned to confirm that she was still missing and a police investigation was underway.

There continued to no word from Claudia throughout the weekend and Joan travelled home to North Yorkshire on Monday, and opened her front door in the hope that she would see a card from Claudia on the doormat. To her dismay, there wasn't one and there hasn't been one since.

Every Mother's Day weekend, Joan goes through the ritual of displaying her old cards from Claudia because it makes her feel closer to her missing daughter.

Joan finds comfort in holding anything of Claudia's, like the winter coat she recovered from the wardrobe at her daughter's home in York. It was the last birthday present Joan had bought her.

"I just like to feel things that she's touched. It just helps me to get through the days," says Joan.

The same goes for Claudia's old riding hat that she had as a girl, enjoying carefree days with her pony, Flash.

Joan will again spend this weekend in the Peak District with Ali, but not before Claudia's cards are in place on the mantelpiece in Malton.

She'll return to North Yorkshire on Monday, praying that there'll be a card on the doormat, but knowing deep down that there almost certainly won't be.

"All I can do is try to go on in the belief that she's out there somewhere," says Joan. "Until I know for certain that she's not, I'll never ever give up."