KNOXVILLE, TN ( Story courtesy of WVLT) – The former CEO of a homeless shelter and ministry in Knoxville has finally reunited with his son after more than 20 years.
Burt Rosen, who served as the president and CEO of Knox Area Rescue Ministries (KARM) for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2022, has spent the nearly the last 25 years searching for his son, Matthew.
On Monday, Rosen announced on LinkedIn that he had found his son in one of the unlikeliest of places.
Rosen said they had tracked Matthew from their then-home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Colorado, West Virginia, Virginia, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and, finally, Fairbanks, Alaska.
The family had help from several agencies and investigators, but Rosen said there was nothing conclusive until he came across an address believed to be where Matthew was at last week.
So, Rosen set out with his wife, Carolyn, and Matthew’s two sisters to Fairbanks with the plan to knock on Matthew’s front door unannounced, but they didn’t even have to do that.
“As we made our final turn to travel the gravel road a quarter mile off the main street, where Matthew’s mailbox is located and he just happened to be, our daughter shouted ‘That’s Matthew!’,” the post said in part. “Carolyn called Matthew’s name as we got out of the car. We stood there for just a moment frozen. Stunned. Then came the hugs and weeping and a FaceTime connect to Matthew’s brother back in [Pennsylvania] who was unable to travel.”
Rosen said what followed was several days of being reunited, reconciled and restored.
“Today we are rejoicing [that] a lost son has been found!” Rosen exclaimed in the post.
Since retiring from KARM, Burt and Carolyn co-founded Hold On To Hope, an organization that offers support, encouragement and hope for those who are missing a loved one.
The backstory for Mr. Rosen and his son is complicated.
The old saying goes, if you find a job you love you’ll never work a day in your life. At first, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth for Burt Rosen.
When he accepted the position at KARM 20 years ago, he was haunted by his own painful connection to homelessness, “I couldn’t look in the face of anybody who was coming through the doors. Every one of them morphed into the face of Matthew and I thought, ‘What have I done?’”
Every day he checked a Google Alert he created for his missing son, Matthew Rosen. Every day brings a little ray of optimism. “You just think, maybe today will be the day.”
Burt and his wife Carolyn had been waiting for word of their missing son for 20 years. The day hasn’t come until now.
“He was kind, he was very comical, he was always cracking jokes, he was always making us laugh, he was always a straight A student. He always took care of his brother. He just had so much compassion. He was such a sweet boy,” Carolyn reflected about their first-born son.
So, what changed? Whatever it was, Burt said it happened when Matthew went to college: “He became more introverted, he became more silent with his emotions. You just get this intuitive sense as a parent, something is not right. The son that went off to college was not the son that came home. Matthew was diagnosed with being bipolar, he didn’t think he was. He was convinced that he didn’t need the medication.”
Burt and Carolyn said Matthew refused help and his behavior became toxic. That’s when they made the difficult choice to ask him to leave, “I can remember us asking him to leave and watching him with the roller board suitcase. Carolyn and I stood there at the door sobbing as we watched our kid walk down the street. What happened to our baby? How did this happen?”
Through occasional emails sent by Matthew, the Rosens learned their son was living on the streets of New York City.
Matthew was newly homeless when Burt was asked to lead KARM. How did he find the strength to say yes? “Somehow I had this sense that everything we had been through, including with Matthew, was now going to make a difference,” said Burt. “Maybe we can’t make a difference in the life of our own son, but maybe we can make a difference in the lives of the 400 plus or minus people who come into KARM every single night.”
“I can go to KARM or I can meet someone on the street and I can be friendly to him, if I can’t be friendly to my own son. So that’s what keeps me going,” Carolyn explained.
Burt officially retires on October 1, 2022. He’s already working with his wife on a new mission born when Burt asked himself, “There’s a plethora of websites out there that will help you find your child. But who will help the parents go through what they have to go through just to endure?”
Burt and Carolyn are counseling parents across the country who also have missing and homeless children.
Burt and Carolyn started counseling other couples across the country and had plans to expand their help to siblings and other loved ones of missing people.
Story Courtesy of WVLT News
