Kelly Elfalak says the three days her son went missing in remote Hunter bushland were the "worst time in my life", but she and her "beautiful boy" are now thriving.
The Newcastle Herald visited Kelly, husband Anthony and their four boys this week, 16 months after three-year-old "AJ" was found in a creek gully barely 500 metres from their weekender near Putty.
For Kelly and Anthony, who live in Chipping Norton in Sydney, the "overwhelming" stress of those three days will never fade completely, but they and AJ are moving on.
"It's still present. It's still fresh. It feels like it just happened yesterday, but at the same time it's like it happened a long time ago," Kelly said.
"It's still in my memory. I don't think it will leave me for a long time, but I'm slowly moving past it.
"It was definitely overwhelming. So much stress on me and the whole family. It was the worst time of my life. It was very hard. It was difficult, but we got through it, thank god."
The family had been at the property for three months during the COVID-19 pandemic while Kelly home-schooled her two older boys, Patrick and Michael.
"I was in the kitchen at the time doing some dishes and a load of washing. He usually follows me around," she said.
"I just said to the boys to go for a buggy ride around the house.
"It was the same routine we had done for the last three months we were here.
"I was home-schooling them every morning.
"They had done their homework in the morning. They would come downstairs and go out and play all day.
"They came back from the ride, they came inside, and then before you know it he's just gone.
"Anthony said to me, 'Where's AJ?' And I said, 'He's just here,' and then I looked around and he's not here.
"I thought, 'It's fine; he'll be outside playing with the rocks or on the swing.' We looked around and he wasn't there.
"That's when I started panicking. I hopped into the car and went down the paddock. I had someone on the bike going that way and someone that way.
"I can't explain it. In an instant he disappeared."
AJ's vanishing sparked a search of the rugged 260-hectare property involving more than 400 SES volunteers, detectives, police on foot, horseback and trail bikes, detectives, five helicopters, friends, relatives and divers.
The story made headlines around the world and prompted a mountain of speculation on social media, not all of it welcome, about what might have happened.
"Everyone's a detective these days, but I just ignored that. You need to, otherwise you'll just be upset all the time," Kelly said.
"I just didn't let anything get to me. I just focused on AJ and getting him back, making our family whole again.
"I am on social media a lot, so I know how it happens and what goes on. I just closed everything, put my phone down and just said don't worry about it."
Anthony said he had found it hard to set the speculation aside, including suggestions AJ might have wandered into a large dam below the house.
"At the time you're freaking out because you're hearing all this other stuff, 'He might be here, he might be in the dam,'" he said.
Anthony keeps heavy equipment on the property from his plumbing and earthmoving business in Sydney.
At one point he was asked to use one of the machines to lower the water level in the dam.
"They told me to dig the dam and I've had to get out of the machine because I didn't want to dig and find him in the dam. I got one of the locals to dig it. I was just watching.
"The divers were in there. The first hour [of the search] I swam that dam, me and my mate. When a log hit my leg I freaked out.
"Time was against you. The police were doing their job, the SES was doing their job.
"I felt like we had all bases covered. It was just the time and the nights and we had to find him. It was getting cold and raining a little bit.
"I just wanted to get him home."
One of the theories about AJ's disappearance, that he had been abducted, came from Kelly herself after she spotted a mysterious white ute driving past the property soon after he went missing.
"Back then I thought many things. I was in hysterics; I couldn't find my son for three days," she said.
"I thought someone took him. I thought he can't walk that long; he couldn't climb any cliffs or go through any bush.
"But just looking back on everything I think he just went for a nice adventure, and I think his autism did help him.
"I think AJ didn't think he was in danger. I truly think he thought he was going on an adventure and had fun the whole way. I'm sure he was scared the whole time, but his autism did help him in surviving, I guess."
Police drew a similar conclusion when they released a report on their investigation into the matter two months later, ruling that AJ was the victim of "misadventure" and no one else was involved.
A PolAir helicopter finally spotted AJ sitting drinking water in a muddy gully where searchers had passed days earlier.
It was late morning on the Monday after he went missing, and Kelly had returned to the property after praying in a nearby Greek Orthodox monastery.
"I was going up the mountain and I heard my brother-in-law on the radio saying, 'We found him,'" she said.
"So then I raced back down. I was probably only a few hundred metres away. I was in a ute.
"They said, 'He's alive,' and I went crazy, and that's when everything let go of me.
"I said, 'Oh my god, is he alive?' I waited, waited, then I heard it, then, 'Thank god.'
"I never gave up. God gave me that strength to keep going. I always knew I would find him; I just didn't know what day and what time, but we never gave up the whole way.
"We just kept going with everything we had."
Kelly collapsed while running across a cleared paddock to the spot where AJ had been scooped up by Port Stephens SES volunteer Greg "Bluey" Chalmers.
"My legs gave way. That's all I remember. I was so overwhelmed that my body was just shutting down," Kelly said.
"The boys had to help me go through the paddock.
"I was advised by the commander and the police to wait for AJ in the ambulance.
"They told me to keep calm, not to scream or cry. Just to hold everything so he doesn't get scared.
"We were together in the ambulance. I just held everything in until they put him into my arms."
The ambulance took Kelly and AJ to Maitland Hospital before they were allowed to leave that afternoon.
"We were there for a few hours and we did some testing and they said he's good to go.
"I was fine. I was so proud of myself. I held everything together because I had to for AJ.
"What he went through, I can't imagine what he went through, so as his mum I had to be strong for him.
"I kept everything together and we came home and went straight to bed."
She said the first few weeks after AJ's "adventure" were "hard".
"He had nightmares every night. He's still scared of the dark.
"But other than that he's doing very well. He's thriving in other ways. He's understanding a bit more now.
"That was the only downfall from what happened. He's just really scared of the dark and doesn't like to be on his own.
"But he's improved so much. Those nightmares have gone."
The couple have mounted a huge metal cross at the entrance to the Putty property to "thank god every day for returning AJ to us".
AJ was happy playing in a swing and taking a ride in a motorised all-terrain vehicle with oldest brother Michael, who is nine, and six-year-old Alexander on the day the Herald visited this week.
Kelly said AJ was "always laughing".
"I call them laughing fits. He'll just sit there and start laughing.
"He's always laughing, smiling at everything. He's placid. Look at him. He's amazing. He's a beautiful, good boy."
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