KEARNS — Every morning when Cheryl Bensing wakes, it hits her all over again. Her son, Ensign Richard Bensing, is trapped inside China — one of 24 U.S. Navy personnel aboard the surveillance plane being held by the Chinese government.
"This is pretty incredible," the Taylorsville woman said. "He was in the gulf during Desert Storm, and he's been out on long tours at sea, but this is a lot different." Like any mother, she just wants to know if her 32-year-old son is OK. She wants to know if he's comfortable. If he's eating, sleeping.
"I just want to talk to him," she said. "I always say to him, 'You're still my little baby boy.' And he says, 'You're still my little baby mom.' "
The first news of her son's situation came early Sunday morning when Cheryl Bensing's husband, John Bensing, from whom she is separated, called her from his Florida home about 6 a.m. with the news of their son's situation.
"I turned on the television and there it was," she said. "My reaction was just absolute shock."
She has been glued to the television ever since — watching and waiting for some sign that the stalemate between China and the United States is headed toward conclusion. A representative from the Navy calls the family several times daily with updates, but the information amounts to "about what you hear on the evening news."
"I wish they could tell us more. I'm pretty upset. I don't really understand why (the Chinese) are holding them," said Cheryl Bensing, who moved to Utah after her son was grown. "I try not to think about him not coming home. That would be unthinkable. He's got a wife and a 1-year-old daughter."
John Bensing said his initial reaction to the call from the Navy was that his son must have been killed.
"They assured me pretty quickly though that nobody was hurt," said the retired jeweler, who lives in Sun City Center, Fla. "My first question was, 'What is the prospect of getting them out?' They didn't have an answer for that, and they still don't."
Richard Bensing, 32, is the second of the couple's three children. He enlisted in the Navy 13 years ago and was commissioned as an officer in 1999. He is stationed at a base in northern Japan. Neither of his parents knew their son's responsibilities on the surveillance plane.
His wife of nine years, Razel, and their daughter, Kaitlyn, who had her first birthday in February, are with family in San Diego, Cheryl Bensing said.
Richard Bensing and his mother last spoke two weeks ago when "Guy," as he is known to his family, called the Kearns home of his sister, Toni Johanson, to bestow a birthday wish from Japan upon his young niece.
"The waiting is the worst," said Johanson, who said her brother has always been someone she could count on. "I don't think I could live like this for a year."
John Bensing doesn't think that will happen. Based on his conversations with Navy officials, he said he is confident the plane and its crew will soon be released.
"I don't expect it to be indefinite," he said. "My concern, at this point, is that (the situation) doesn't force the two governments to get their testosterone going to the point that somebody thinks that they have to prove something."
Cheryl Bensing sees that as unlikely.
"I think they know that would be a bad idea. The whole world is watching them," Cheryl Bensing said. "It would be barbaric for (the Chinese) to hurt them."
And although she is worried, Cheryl Bensing knows her son can take care of himself — and not just because she knows he has been well trained by the Navy. Born about eight weeks premature, Guy Bensing weighed just 2 pounds, 9 ounces and had to fight for his life.
"I've always felt that he was special. He survived his birth and he was supposed to be here," Cheryl Bensing said. "I haven't cried much, just once Sunday morning, when I was alone. But in my mind, I've been having flashes of him when he was little doing different things."
While she waits for the outcome, Cheryl Bensing said she would like a chance to talk with the 23 other Navy mothers who also wait for news of their children.
"I'd like to tell them I know exactly what you're feeling," she said. "That we've got to get this crew, our sons and daughters, home."
E-MAIL: dobner@desnews.com