Michael Karwan and his parents landed at Newark Airport on Wednesday night and headed to their Marlboro home for Thanksgiving.

Michael Karwan upon his return
Michael Karwan upon his return (News 12 NJ)
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Friends and family greeted the autistic 19-year-old as they walked into the terminal ending a stressful week for his parents who searched for him endlessly since he left their home last Tuesday after an argument. Michael, who had never gone to a movie by himself according to News 12 New Jersey, wound up in Cleveland.

"It might be only seven days, but for us it was an eternity," said Michael's father Walter. The family's spirits were raised upon hearing Michael had been found from two Marlboro Police detectives. "We were just ecstatic, happy, screaming, yelling. They got more hugs yesterday than they really wanted,” Walter told PIX 11.

Michael's journey took him from Marlboro to Manhattan to upstate New York and eventually Cleveland where an alert workers at a homeless shelter recognized his picture from a Facebook news feed and called police. His parents immediately went to Cleveland to bring him home. "We embraced and cried, and I just told him I loved him. And he said he missed me," Walter told News 12 of their reunion.

Walter says they still don't know all the details of Michael's time away from home except to say that "anxiety took over" and he kept moving from one place to another. Walter told reporters that met them at the airport they want to give Michael a "chance to sort things out."

It will be a special Thanksgiving for the Karwan family. “It’s a miracle, it’s a gift. I really attribute this to the almighty god that he heard our prayers. Because it’s literally a miracle to – we were down on ourselves, and you start doubting, for all this happen. I can’t tell you how happy we are that this happened,” Walter told PIX 11.

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