A woman who says her mother left when she was 14 has opened up about whether she could ever forgive her, after learning more than two decades later that her mom is still alive.
Amanda had spent years fearing the worst about her mother, Michele Hundley Smith, who vanished in 2001. Now 38, she recently learned that Michele is alive — and that she has been in the same state, North Carolina, all along.
Michele was last seen at her home in Stoneville on the night of December 9, 2001. According to the family, she kissed her children goodnight, said she was heading out for late-night Christmas shopping in Martinsville, Virginia, and then never came back.
With no answers for years and repeated calls for information going nowhere, the case remained cold for a long time. After finally discovering that her mother was alive after 24 years of uncertainty, Amanda described the flood of emotions she’s been hit with: “I am ecstatic, I am p*ssed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map!”
In the years since Michele disappeared, investigators and loved ones repeatedly tried to generate new leads. Rockingham County Sheriffs even issued another public push in 2020, but it did not produce the breakthrough they needed.
That changed when fresh information was passed to local authorities by a national law enforcement agency. With that new detail, sheriffs were able to locate Michele — and it turned out she hadn’t gone far.
Despite the discovery, the outcome has not been the reunion the family hoped for. Police have said Michele indicated she did not want contact with her previous family, who have only been informed that she is alive.
Amanda shared the update on a Facebook page that had been created to help find her mother. Alongside relief, she also expressed a deep sense of hurt and uncertainty about what could come next.
In a long post, she asked: “Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that bc I don’t even know… My initial reaction would be yes absolutely but then I think of all the hurt… But even then … My mom is only human just as we all are.”
As an adult, Amanda said she can now recognize how someone might feel pushed to run from a life that feels unbearable. But she also made it clear that understanding doesn’t erase what happened, or the damage it caused.
“Everything I have been through in life, I can absolutely understand taking off and leaving,” Amanda said. “I am not saying that she gets off scott free without accountability or responsibility [because] she absolutely needs to do that.
“What I am saying is that I am a runner as well and while this isn’t something to be proud of at all, it’s a part of being human. Each one of us humans have our faults, we each have a shadow part and we each deserve the chance to better ourselves and to heal from our past.”
Even with that perspective, Amanda admitted that the pain hasn’t faded. She noted that every member of the family will have to reach their own conclusions about forgiveness and what they can live with moving forward.
For her, she said, it may be possible to forgive one day — but it may also prove too hard. “I may completely forgive my mother at some point or it may be too much to forgive… Well I mean nobody ever just forgets this kind of pain but I mean forget it enough to go on with life.
“My heart, soul and spirit says that I will forgive and I will never forget but I will be able to see it as a pain that no longer controls me. Right now, my head says that would be insane.”