KEY POINTS:
When two women found a body in Warkworth's Mahurangi River yesterday, it confirmed what Luke Mason's family already knew.
The Warkworth teenager went missing 12 days ago, last seen at a party in the town just before 8pm on Friday, July 20.
Several searches involving up to 150 police officers, family, friends and volunteers failed to find any sign of Luke.
His mother, Jenny Wade, "knew" nine days ago that he was dead.
"I knew in my heart," she said at her Warkworth home last night.
"On the Monday, the first Monday, I believed he was gone. Not everybody's spiritual but I woke up on the Monday and I felt he was with my mother. She died when I was 18."
Desperate to keep her mind occupied, Mrs Mason had already started planning a memorial for Luke, to be held this Saturday.
So, she said, it brought "total relief" while she was sitting at the Warkworth police station about 11.30am yesterday when a woman phoned to say a body had been found.
Supported at home by Luke's brother Todd, who turns 13 tomorrow, and sister Ashlee, 15, Mrs Wade said her son - brother also to Joanne, 22 - was gone but not forgotten.
She had a bright blue design with forget-me-not flowers and swallows tattooed on her left arm in his memory on Monday.
"It's the same colour as his eyes," she said. "Swallows represent true love, freedom, protection and a safe journey. I got it on my body before they found his."
Police have been puzzled by Luke's disappearance. The only clues to his whereabouts were three sightings of him and the discovery of his bicycle and shoes - all at the bridge crossing the Mahurangi River on State Highway 1.
Mrs Wade said she believed Luke must have dropped something in the river and slipped as he went to collect it.
Ashlee and Todd described Luke as a "very protective" older brother. Smiling at the memory, they described him as "loyal, very loyal, very happy and physically affectionate".
Mrs Wade said she had been comforted by the overwhelming generosity the family had been given by people who helped look for Luke.
The past 12 days had been "surreal ... like a bad movie that you don't want to watch the end of".
But finding Luke's body was not the end.
"It's just the beginning of another one,"she said, smiling sadly.
"It's learning to live with a great big hole in my heart."
The planned memorial will now be a farewell at Warkworth Primary School hall at 2pm on Saturday, August 11. A private funeral will also be held.
