Mike Hung feels like he’s living in a surreal world since his father Miguel Hung, 71, disappeared last weekend after leaving his home in Raleigh, NC

“We’re just trying to maintain some level of hope and positivity,” a visibly distraught Hung tells PEOPLE. “You see it on TV and in movies, but you never expect it to affect your family.”

According to Mike, his father disappeared sometime between the evening of August 9 and early morning the next day. He said his father took little more than the clothes on his back when he took his wife Pamela’s silver Mercedes and disappeared without his cellphone or wallet.

“And since then there has been no trace of him,” says 38-year-old Mike.

Christopher Gay, chief detective with the Raleigh Police Department, told PEOPLE on Friday, August 16, that the department is actively working the case, but Miguel is still reported missing and there are no further details.

“I know the state has his name and vehicle information posted on billboards along the highway,” Gay says. “I’ve actually seen them on my way to and from work. But we don’t have any current information.”

Mike says the week before his father’s disappearance was especially hard on his father because Miguel’s brother was buried that week. Although it’s unlikely, Mike says Miguel, whose family mostly lives in Florida, decided to visit. (Mike says his father’s family in Florida knows about his disappearance and has been sharing the news on social media and asking for help.)

Miguel was only 14 when he left his family and friends behind to emigrate from Cuba. At 18, he bought his first house and worked hard to pay for college.

“He gave up everything to have a better life,” says his son. “My father has overcome a lot in his life despite all the adversities.”

Friends, family and neighbors are searching for anyone who may be monitoring their homes to try to track down Miguel. Mike’s sister, Brittany Rutledge, 41, lives nearby and has been raising awareness of the situation on social media and asking for help in finding her father. She and her husband have begun the search.

“We will not give up because my father would never have given up on us,” he adds.

Mike says they found his father’s cell phone in a drawer at home and discovered “literally hundreds of text messages.”

“They said, ‘Where are you?’ ‘What’s going on?’ They knew he was depressed and they would take him out to eat and stuff,” Mike says, saying his father was part of a “tight-knit group.”

Mike says his father has developed mental health issues in recent years after suffering a heart attack and bypass surgery in 2019, followed by a stroke in 2021.

His family says Miguel suffered from aphasia after the stroke. “It really had a big impact on him,” Mike says. “He didn’t have any of those behaviors before those medical incidents.”

The father of two children and grandfather of five young grandchildren gave up his job as a car salesman after a heart attack. He has been married to his wife Pamela for 45 years.

“He was always the happiest person, always cracking jokes and being the life of every party,” says his son. “He was looking forward to retirement and spending time with his family and traveling. However, his health problems have taken a toll on him and he has struggled with them in recent years.”

Mike says there were no warning signs at the time of his father’s disappearance and that it wasn’t unusual for him to get up in the middle of the night to get a snack or go downstairs. After Miguel disappeared twice before, his mother began keeping her husband’s keys in her wallet, according to Mike, but the family believes he found a spare key to the car.

But Mike says the two previous times his father was gone for less than 24 hours. Both times he came home himself and told his family he had been at a nearby park.

“It was never the six days we are experiencing now,” he says.

Mike says his family is trying to hold on to hope that his father, his “best friend and best man at my wedding,” is still alive.

“He’s always been there for us. I just want to bring my dad home,” he says. “We want to help him with his problems and get him back to where he was before these health problems. But either way, we just need to know that we know.”

Raleigh Police are asking the public for help in locating Miguel Gabriel Hung, driving a 2016 silver Mercedes C300 with NC license plate HFJ-6566. If you have any information, please call Raleigh Police at 919-996-3335.