Cynthia Clemons-Young and her son have been reunited by phone.
After days of searching the Internet for any sign of Edward Clemons, he called Friday morning from Japan. It was the first time he and his mother have talked since the earthquake and tsunami.
CNN found Clemons and let him use their phone on Friday to call home. Clemons-Young missed the first call, but he called back. They talked for about 20 minutes, then got cut off.
"He was in good spirits and said, 'Mom, I'm OK,'" she recalled.
For the past three years, Clemons has been living in and teaching in Sendai, one of the hardest-hit areas by last week's earthquake and tsunami. Clemons-Young said she heard from her son shortly before the city was destroyed.
It had been a week since the 25-year-old reached out to anyone.
"It's hard, but you just take one day at a time and just keep prayed up," she said a night earlier.
Clemons apparently wasn't hurt and is staying at the school where he worked.
Local
Officials at the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program had originally told Clemons-Young earlier in the week that they'd located her son at a shelter, but that ended up being not the case.
"They located him at first as accounted, and then a few days later he was not accounted for," she explained.
Now she knows for certain.
