Marlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
For over two decades, Amanda Smith wondered what happened to her mother who disappeared 24 years ago in North Carolina. In a twist out of Hollywood, she had an emotional reunion Thursday with her mother, who for years didn’t want to be found.
Michele Hundley Smith was 38 when she was reported missing in December 2001, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina said. In February, she was found “alive and well” in the state following a tip. On Thursday, the moment Amanda dreamed of for years came true. The two reunited outside the Rockingham County district courthouse, where her mother was set to appear. Smith walked toward her daughter with open arms and held her in a long, tight embrace. She complimented her daughter's hair and kissed her. 'Oh, I know everything is not black and white. There’s a whole gray area,' Amanda Smith told NBC affiliate WXII of Winston-Salem. 'Life’s too short for me to hold a grudge against her because she’s my mom.' “We only get one life and I want my mom in it,” she told the station. Days after she was located, Smith was arrested on an outstanding order related to her failing to appear in court 25 years ago. That order was in connection with a driving while intoxicated charge issued on Nov. 11, 2001, by the Eden Police Department. Her daughter accompanied her to her arraignment Thursday. During the hearing, Smith requested a court-appointed attorney and her next court date is set for April 23, the sheriff's office said. It’s not clear why Smith left her life behind all those years ago. She was last known to have left home on Dec. 9, 2001, headed to a K-Mart in Martinsville, Virginia, for Christmas shopping and never returned, the sheriff’s office said. After she was found, she indicated to authorities that there were “domestic issues,” and that she left on her own accord, Rockingham County Sheriff’s Capt. Jonathan Cheek previously said. The sheriff’s office had no records related to such issues before she departed. Smith had asked that her location not be disclosed, including to her family members who were notified that she was found, the office said. Smith has two daughters and a son, Amanda shared on Facebook in 2021. For more than 20 years, Amanda didn’t lose hope. She ran a Facebook page asking for information and sharing personal reflections on missing her mother. Last month, after her mother was found, Amanda posted on the Facebook page: “I will say that my mother chose her new life and we know she is alive, and for now that is enough.” She said her family was “hurting” and her father suffered as the target of “many accusations since all the way back then.” “I am ecstatic, I am pissed, I am heartbroken, I am all over the map! Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that bc I don’t even know,” she wrote at the time.
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