My friend has been missing for 7 years and I found her teenage son on instagram. Should I message him?

My (F33) friend (F33) who we’ll call “Ashley” has been missing for about 7 years. 1 year to prior that was when she was actually disappeared on everyone and it took me and some other friends a lot of effort to track her down and see if she is alive. Ashley has been using drugs since she was a teen, had her first baby at 16 years old, and another a few years later. They do not have the same father. Some time in her 20s, she began to fall very very deep into addiction, lost custody of both her sons, and cut off all contact with everyone. Her parents were never really present and her mother is also an addict so they didn’t really give a shit. We knew she’d run off with a “boyfriend” who had known her all her life was 30 years older than her but had no way to reach her until we managed to her her burner number one day. All we really got at that time was that she was alive, and we had a brief conversation with her where we tried to convince her to let me fly her out to where I’m living now to pay for her to get help and treatment, but then she went dark again. It has been 7 years since that conversation.

Ashley and I have been friends all our lives, meeting in school and becoming close because my parents took pity on her situation and tried to shelter her with us for a while. She was a “wild girl” when we were in school, but I kind of balanced her out. She was actually doing well until she got pregnant and dropped out, but we stayed friends. She was always a beautiful, kind and loving person and she meant a lot to me. She was my best friend and we loved each other deeply, and I think of her all the time.

Over the last 7 years I’ve tracked down every lead I could think of, but I’m very far away now and it’s difficult. I type her name into google with the word “obituary” every few months to see if anything comes up. She hasn’t used any social media in 7 years and not a single one of her friends has spoken to her. For the first year we heard rumours that she was staying in some motel or something but could never pin her down. After that, nothing.

Ashley’s eldest son would be 17 now, and in a bit of desperation I googled his name to see if anything would come up. Finally after all this time, something. He has an instagram page. I sobbed when I saw it. This is the son who used to call me “Auntie myname”, and now he’s a teenager. I know that when Ashley lost custody, it went to her son’s father (who was an adult when Ashley got pregnant), who has outright refused to help in our search for Ashley and is also no longer using social media.

How unhinged would it be to simply ask her son if she is alive? My gut is telling me not to do this, or at least to wait until he is 18. But my heart misses her and cares for her, and I just want to know if it’s time to grieve her and move on. I feel like her son would remember me but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Even though she lost custody I’m sure her son would know if she’s alive.