The last time Poornima Ramarao spoke to her son, a 26-year-old software engineer named Suchir Balaji, was on his birthday, Nov. 21. He was on a backpacking trip with a few friends on Catalina Island, right off the coast of Los Angeles. It was a quick call. Ramarao wanted to let him get back to celebrating with his friends. “I blessed him, but my blessing didn’t protect him,” Ramarao tells Fortune.