Elizabeth Smart

Did anyone else see Elizabeth Smart on Oprah today? I have a confession. For a short period of time I had a near obsession with Elizabeth Smart. There are a lot of reasons for that. When Elizabeth was kidnapped, I lived in Utah, and of course she is from Salt Lake. She and her family are LDS, and of course I am too. At the time I lived in Provo, only a 40 minute drive from where Elizabeth was stolen out of her window. When all the press came out about poor Elizabeth, a friend of ours at the time in Provo suddenly started to have memories of being abducted when she was a small child. I just remember being so scared that people can be so easily kidnapped and shocked that both of these events were literally in my own back yard. In Utah the media talked about little else besides Elizabeth's abduction and my friends and I were fully convinced it was her parents. The reward for Elizabeth's safe return was so high that on a Saturday night if we were bored, we'd joke about going to look for Elizabeth for that reward money. You just couldn't escape Elizabeth on your mind every single day!
When Elizabeth was found I just couldn't believe it. I remember the day well. I was at work when I found out and I cried. Everyone was talking about it, and we were just all shocked. I still think she is the luckiest girl ever. The odds were against her, I don't know how she came out of it alive. What's even more bizarre is once we saw the pictures of her kidnappers, those 2 crazy people, in their crazy prophet get-ups, and saw the picture of Elizabeth with the face coverings, my late husband Adam and our friend Dave realized that they were pretty sure that they had seen Elizabeth and her captors on the downtown streets of Salt Lake. How crazy is that? It never crossed their minds that it could possibly be Elizabeth Smart. They were that close to that poor girl. It still blows my mind. In the after months of Elizabeth's safe return I read everything I could about her. Magazines, online articles, news articles as well as Ed Smart's book. She was featured in People or Us a few months ago and I had to get that to read that too. So of course, her being on Oprah today I had to watch. And, I am so affected that I had to blog about it.
What an amazing story. I am so struck by what a well balanced, smart girl she is. She's in school at BYU, dating and functioning just like any normal 20 year old girl. I just have so much respect for her and for her family, for never giving up and for keeping their faith that it would all end up ok. I can't imagine being a parent in their position. I would never want her to leave my sight again! I think Elizabeth's story is a great example, like Oprah said, how one can live through a literal nightmare and come out triumphant. Now Ed Smart is writing legislature and Elizabeth made a pamphlet with the Dept. of Justice on how to cope after being abducted. The chances of that girl going what she went through, at the sheltered, tender age of 14, and coming out the way she has is, in my opinion, phenomenal. I think she is up there on my list of heroes. So, kudos Elizabeth. You have inspired me and reminded me that life is SO worth living, even after tragedy, and that optimism and forgiveness are truly virtues worth embracing.