Son contacts mother after 23 years

Here is a article that got me upset the more I read it. I think the son should have been whacked across the head many times for putting his mother through 23 years of sorrow.






By Simon Read, STAFF WRITER



LIVERMORE — Terri Helkenn pondered her missing son's fate for 23 years. Her life has been one of agonizing questions and dark thoughts as to what may have happened to her oldest child.
Tirelessly inspired by a wrenching need to know, she has spent more than two decades looking for John Humbard. Last summer, she found him — thanks, in part, to an article in the Tri-Valley Herald, a sister paper to The Argus. The child she last saw as a young man has advanced well into middle age with a wife and family of his own.

"It's overwhelming," Helkenn, 62, said with tears in her eyes. "It's just completely overwhelming." As she spoke, sitting on the sofa in her Livermore home, the son she never thought she would see again put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

Young love sparked absence


In November 1983, Humbard, then 21, followed his heart to Argentina to visit a young woman he met one summer when she traveled to San Diego to visit relatives.

But his trip to see Patricia, the woman he loved, did not go as planned. She told him she wanted to finish school before committing to a serious relationship.

Heartbroken, Humbard — known for his quick wit and love of "Star Trek" — left Argentina and wandered through South America, hiking in Uruguay and Brazil.

He sent his family postcards and letters. In May 1984, he sent a letter from Punta del Este, Uruguay. He promised to be home for his younger brother's high school graduation in June.

But instead, Humbard vanished and left countless questions in his wake.


http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3643358