Courtesy Photo Lisa Knight, aged about 15, stands with her horse, Czar, in Ossineke in this courtesy photo supplied by Knight’s mother.

OSSINEKE — Lisa Knight loved horses and a good time.

A spitfire who spoke her mind and battled demons, Knight disappeared 10 years ago this week, leaving behind a puzzled community and a family who wanted her back.

Police have done all they can to find the Ossineke woman last seen on June 8, 2012 at the home of her ex-husband, said Knight’s mother, Jean Knight.

A decade of waiting without answers has taken a toll on Lisa Knight’s children and the brothers and sisters who would do just about anything to see her again, the mother said.

On Wednesday, the 10-year anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Jean Knight described the fun-loving girl she thinks is no longer living, though without proof to bring her closure.

“It’s a rough day,” she said, describing, despite the pain, a peace that carries her past the anger and sadness of not knowing. “When I meet God, he’ll tell me what happened to her.”

In her girlhood, Lisa Knight loved spending time with her horse, Czar, and her adoring younger sister.

A talented artist, she was quick with a joke and the life of the party, more interested in carousing with friends and chasing the high life than in applying her talents, Jean Knight said.

“You said go left, she went right,” the mother said, describing the daughter she called her “wild child.”

“If she didn’t like something you did, whether it was right or wrong, she would tell you,” Jean Knight said.

The daughter’s exuberant temperament drew her to a party crowd and a dip into drug use that led to an on-again, off-again drug problem during her early adult years.

Unable to stay consistently clean, Lisa Knight released her children — the oldest barely into double digits at the time of Lisa’s disappearance, the youngest still in diapers — into the care of family members while she battled her demons, her mother said.

A decade later, the children want to know why their mother disappeared just as she seemed to be straightening out her life, Jean Knight said.

Lisa called her mother not long before the disappearance, sharing news of a new job and making plans for a family barbecue.

Jean Knight doesn’t know why her daughter never showed up for that barbecue. But she believes she will never see Lisa alive again.

“Those are hard words to say,” she acknowledged.

When people tell her Lisa made her own trouble by the choices she made, Jean Knight says she agrees with them.

Lisa’s path may have led her into dangerous territory. But, Jean Knight said, those who judge Lisa by her actions deserve pity, not anger, because they don’t take time to see past those actions to the woman underneath.

“I hated the drugs that held her,” she said. “I hated them with a passion. But my daughter I loved.”

Last summer, when Alpena police searched for a missing and endangered teenager, Brynn Bills — and, shortly thereafter, for a missing and endangered woman, Abby Hill — Jean Knight’s heart went out to the parents who didn’t know where their daughters had gone.

When police announced the discovery of first Bills’ body and then Hill’s, Jean Knight said, “my first thought was, ‘It’s Lisa.'”

The disappointment with each police discovery that wasn’t her daughter was tempered by gratitude that another set of parents didn’t have to go through the ordeal of not knowing whether their child was still alive.

In the first years after Lisa’s disappearance, the mother could only feel anger and a hunger for revenge.

As time passed and the investigation led nowhere, Jean Knight realized she didn’t have to stay angry, she said.

She wanted Lisa’s siblings and children to see in her an example of patient endurance.

“And I’m not good at patience, believe me,” she said.

Still an Ossineke resident, she loves driving past the places her daughter used to walk, the friends’ houses where Lisa used to go to play.

She still cries, yells, and gets furious. But she has chosen to be happy, even though people criticize that choice, Jean Knight said.

Her relationship with God gives her strength to be the person she wants to be for her loved ones as they all wait, hoping someday they’ll know what happened to Lisa.

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t be angry and shout and scream and all that stuff,” Jean Knight said. “It just means that, when you’re done, God’s got it.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.