Mom Who Has Not Seen Her 19 Year Old Son in Nearly a Year and a Half Says a Photo of Him Sitting With a Backpack and a Suitcase Brought Up Grief, Fear and Concern for Everyone at Home

The photo that set it off was simple, as she describes it: her son, sitting with a backpack and a suitcase. Someone who saw him over the weekend took a picture and sent it to her. “I’ve not seen a candid photo of my son,” she says. “I’ve not caught a personal glimpse of him in a year and a half.”

The mom, who posts as @mom.behind.the.scenes, recorded the two minute video from the front seat of a car and posted it on September 23, 2026. She opens with the facts: “My 19 year old son was in town this weekend. I haven’t seen him face to face in almost a year and a half.” Her caption is one line: “So many mixed emotions involved in a very messy situation.”

She explains how little she usually knows. People ask her often whether she knows where he is, and she says she has “rarely known exactly where he was.” Over the last year and a half, she says, she has had “general tidbits of information.” Sometimes people tell her they saw him. Sometimes “an agency or service will still have me listed as a contact,” and they call her while trying to find him, which tells her a little. What she has not had, she says, is anything like “today he is here, and this is how he’s doing today.”

That is why the weekend photo hit so hard. She says it “stirred up a lot of emotions,” both positive and negative, and she is direct about the second part: “having him here brings up a lot of concern for everyone in our home.” She does not explain the reasons in this video. She describes the practical question running through her head instead: “what would I do if I ran into him at the store?”

By the day she filmed, she no longer knew whether he was still in town. “Briefly, I knew where he was, and now I don’t anymore,” she says. “And that’s both loss and fear and sadness.” She repeats one word twice: “There’s a lot of grief. There’s a lot of grief in that.” She ends by saying it will probably bring up a lot every time it happens, then signs off with “That’s all. Okay. Thanks. Bye.”

Whether she saw or heard from him again afterward is not in this video.

If you are a parent in a situation like hers

• Keep a simple dated log of every sighting or call you receive: who contacted you, when, and what they said. When information arrives in scraps, a log helps you see the pattern.
• If an agency calls you looking for your adult child, ask whether they can take a message or pass along your contact information.
• Decide ahead of time, with the people in your home, what you will each do if you run into the person unexpectedly, the exact question she raises about the store. A plan made in a calm moment is easier to follow than one made in the aisle.
• Ask the people who send you sightings to tell you only what you want to know, whether that is every detail or just that he was seen and looked okay.

Support for the parent, too

The grief she names is the parent’s to carry, and there is a line for that. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 988 fact sheet, 988 responds 24/7 to calls, texts and chats from anyone who needs support for mental health, and its crisis counselors provide support and resources for family, friends, caregivers and advocates. You can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.