My Story (6 page)

I woke up feeling something being wrapped around my ankle. I jolted awake. The sun was high and it was getting hot inside the tent. The man was kneeling over me, wrapping a steel cable around my ankle. The cable was stretched to near its limit. I followed it with my eyes. It extended out the tent door and disappeared.

I turned back to the man as he jerked the cable tight around my ankle. “What are you doing!” I cried in disbelief.

“Shearjashub, I just want to take away any temptations,” he replied sarcastically.

I felt the cable being cinched against my skin. I felt its tautness. I felt its strength.

My heart sank.

“Shearjashub, you’ve got to be a good girl now,” he said.

Shearjashub! Who was Shearjashub?
What
was Shearjashub? I didn’t know.

I watched in horror as the man finished his work. He used a crimper to clamp the cable tight, then gave it a tug to test it. Satisfied, he crawled out of the tent, leaving me alone again, leaving behind the taint of his smell. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse!

I picked up and studied the cable. Steel wrapped inside a plastic cover. It seemed strong enough to hold a car. I adjusted my leg, relieving some of the pressure.

Earlier that morning, even as the man had forced me out of my bed, then throughout the long hike up the mountain and the horrible nightmare in the tent, I always thought that he would kill me. I thought he would hurt or kill my family. That scared me even more. And I absolutely knew what he was capable of doing now.

If you haven’t been in such a situation, if you haven’t felt the kind of stone-cold fear that cuts you to the core—and few people really have—it’s impossible to imagine what it does to your thinking, to your emotions, to the way your heart and brain begin to work.

I had always been afraid that he would kill me. But now I realized that wasn’t his plan. He wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to bathe me, dress me up and marry me, and then to trap me with the steel cable if he were going to kill me. My nightmare was not ending. It was just getting started.

Then I had the most horrible thought of all.

What if this goes on forever?!

Is this to be the only life that I will ever know?

Most of us believe in miracles. Not everyone, I understand that, but most of us are pretty comfortable with the thought that there are good things in our lives that come to us as special gifts from God. I don’t mean everything, of course. Sometimes these intersections of fate are really just coincidences. But I think there are far more miracles in our lives than we may ever realize. Like flickers of light among the darkness, they remind us that God is there and that He cares.

One of the miracles that I experienced on that first brutal morning was the fact that, in the midst of all the torment, I was able to find a tiny ray of hope.

Nothing that had happened to me so far was fair. No one knows that more than I do. It was brutal and violent and the greatest intrusion on one’s person that can happen in this world. And the suffering was just beginning. Nine months of pain and fear and the greatest humiliation still lay ahead.

And like I said, I was just a little girl.

Remembering what happened makes me think of a song that I know. It is beautiful, I think, and the lyrics are powerful: “Consider the Lilies” by Roger Hoffman. The third verse asks the listener to think about all the beautiful children who have suffered throughout the history of the world. It goes on to say:

The pains of all of them he carried

From the day of his birth.

I’m probably not the only one who wonders about that sometimes:
The pains of all of them he carried?

How could that be? I mean, looking around us, it doesn’t seem real. In fact, quite the opposite, it seems completely impossible! And in one sense it is. You would have to be blind not to see that there is so much suffering in the world today, much of it heaped upon children. That has always been the case. Maybe it always will be. The fact is, many times children suffer for the sins of others. I was not the only child to have suffered. And the list of ways in which children can be hurt is depressingly long. Fear. Abuse. Pain. Starvation. Slavery. Hunger or sexual exploitation. Being separated from or losing the people they love. In many cases, they are put in absolutely impossible situations where they can’t even begin to protect themselves.

Are their pains eliminated? Are they saved from all this suffering?

In some cases they aren’t, at least not in this world.

Yet if their pains are not eliminated, how then are they comforted? How are their burdens lifted? How are their pains “carried”?

I don’t have all the answers. But this much I know.

Sometimes there are miracles—“tender mercies” some have called them—that comfort us in ways that other people may not see. Sometimes things are offered that we may not know about. Things that give those who suffer strength. Things that give them hope. Things that help them to hang on.

That certainly was the case with me.

I felt some of these miracles along the way.

*

My grandfather Francon died a few days before I was kidnapped. In fact, that was one of the memories that I tried to lock inside my brain after I had been captured; how beautiful my mother looked on the day of his funeral.

I was very close to both of my grandfathers, so Grandpa Francon’s passing was a very sad day for me, but kind of sacred, too. He had dedicated pretty much his entire life to helping others. He was a good man, a good father. He served in many positions in our church, including about twenty years working in the Salt Lake City temple as a volunteer. He worked in various positions right up until the time he got sick.

One of the great memories that I have of when I was young was going to his home for summer picnics. Grandpa and Grandma had a huge backyard, and my cousins and I could play there for hours. They would flood the backyard from the irrigation ditch. We’d have little bonfires and roast hot dogs and marshmallows and have water fights. I remember this old tin basin where we used to bob for apples. Then when the apples were gone, Grandpa would throw in candy, which would, of course, sink to the bottom of the basin. Still, I’d go in after it, getting completely soaked. They had a big garden in the back. He spent a lot of time working there. He was always very active, very healthy. I don’t think he ever took any medicine a single day in his life.

But not long before I was kidnapped—it was about the same time that the Winter Olympics were being played in Salt Lake City—Grandma noticed that Grandpa was starting to slow down. Then he started having trouble getting up once he had sat down. When Grandpa went to see doctors, they discovered a massive tumor in his brain, strands of sinewy fingers stretching in all directions. They operated on him immediately. It seemed like he was getting better for a while. He started to eat again; he seemed to be a little more alert, a little stronger. But it wasn’t real. The fingers were too deep. They couldn’t get out all of the cancer inside his head.

My mom was going to their house almost every day to help Grandma and to spend some time with her dad. Sometimes I’d go with her. They didn’t live far away, maybe twenty minutes to the south, their house nestled up among the Wasatch Mountains. I had a small harp that was a little easier to move around than my big one, and I took it to their home so I could play for him. Sometimes I’d rub his feet and talk to him. Sometimes I’d just sit and hold his hand. I wanted him to know that I loved him, that I wanted to help him if I could. “He knows you are there,” my grandma would tell me. And I know that he did. Right after his surgery, I remember kissing him on the cheek and telling him I loved him. I put my hand in his, and he held it very tight.

He died on May 28. He was seventy-eight years old on the day he passed away.

The funeral took place the day before I was kidnapped.

Which brings me to one of the tender mercies that helped me to carry the horrible pain.

God knew what was about to happen to me. I think that’s why He brought my grandpa home. He knew that Grandpa Francon could be more helpful to me from the other side of the veil. Grandpa was one of my guardian angels. He was sent to comfort and inspire me in the very darkest hours, to help me find reasons for hope or encouragement when I felt the most despair. There were many occasions during the time that I was captured when I felt his spirit near.

During the darkest days that I was captive, it helped me to think that someone I loved, someone who loved me,
someone who was a good man,
was standing at my side. It helped me remember that God still cared for me, that He hadn’t forgotten or forsaken me, that He was doing everything He could to help to carry my pain. It brought me comfort to think that Grandpa was helping me too, giving me a little strength when I had nowhere else to turn, nothing else to hope for, nothing in my life but pain and fear.

Consider the sweet, tender children

Who must suffer on this earth

The pains of all of them he carried

From the day of his birth.

Yes, I believe that God helped to carry me. In fact, I know that He did.

Which is why, as I lay in the tent that morning, wounded and confused, my emotions as jumbled as a jigsaw puzzle, I found the strength to search for something that would help me to go on.

I thought back on my family. As I did, I remembered something that had happened to me just a few months before. I had come home from school really upset. My mom asked me what was wrong. I told her I’d been sitting at a table with my friends, and this popular girl came up and said, “I’m having a party this weekend and all of you are invited.” We were all excited. This was a pretty big deal. To be invited to a party with the popular crowd. That’s the top of the mountain to a junior-high girl.

But then she turned to me. “Except you,” she said. “You’re not invited to my party.”

My friends didn’t even seem to notice. I felt so bad. I was embarrassed and hurt.

After I told my mom what had happened, she tried to make me feel better. “It won’t be that bad spending another weekend at home,” she said.

That didn’t help much.

“You can spend some more time with your family.”

No help at all.

My mom kind of smiled. “You know that ‘popular’ is just another word for rude.”

Now, that I could agree with.

Then she asked me something that added to my hurt: “Do you really think those girls sitting at the table with you are your friends? Are they really friends if, at the first offer, they abandon you?”

I didn’t want to answer that question. I mean, what did it say about my social life? That it was nonexistent. What did it say about what I and every junior-high girl more or less aspired to—being one of the popular ones? Worst of all, what did it say about the girls I thought were my friends? Not one of them had stood up for me. None of them had said, “Don’t worry, Elizabeth, we’ll have our own party this weekend. We’ll hang out with you.”

My mom continued. “Elizabeth, you’re going to meet lots of people in this life. Some of them will like you. Some of them won’t. But of all the people you’ll have to deal with, there are only a few people that matter. God. And your dad and me. God will always love you. You are His daughter. He will never turn his back on you. The same thing is true for me. It doesn’t matter where you go, or what you do, or whatever else might happen, I will always love you. You will always be my daughter. Nothing can change that.”

As she spoke, I realized that she was right. How many times had she picked me up when I felt down? How many times had she talked to me when I needed her or helped me understand a problem or sat through my harp lessons (which weren’t always pleasant) or done a million other things that moms do? She had always been there for me.

Thinking back on this conversation, I realized that my mom would accept me back home again. The fear of rejection was still raw in my mind, but I knew that she wouldn’t reject me for what had happened. She still loved me. She would always love me.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my dad would accept me back as well. I mean, how many times had I crashed one of our snowmobiles into a snowbank? How many other things had I done that he could have gotten mad at me for? But he hadn’t. On the other hand, how many times had he tucked me into bed and told me stories or sang me songs at night? He had always loved me.

Yes … my parents would always love me. My siblings would love me too. They would still accept me, no matter what the man had done.

Which meant I had something still to live for
.

I took a breath and held it, a shudder moving down my spine. In that moment, the world seemed to tip ever so slightly toward the normal. It was as if, in the midst of all the blackness, I saw a ray of light. My mind focused in on it, grasping toward it as a falling man might grasp for a rope.

The realization that my family would still love me proved to be the turning point. In fact, it proved to be the most important moment throughout my entire nine-month ordeal.

It was at this moment that I decided that no matter what happened, I was going to find a way to survive. The conviction was crystal clear. I would do whatever it took to live. No matter what it took, no matter what I had to do, I was going to survive.

And then I thought of something else.

It was desperate, I know that—sometimes I laugh about it now—but it shows how frantic I was to think of some kind of plan.

I pictured my horrible captor. I thought of his long beard and salt-and-pepper hair. He had to be at least as old as my father. The woman looked as old as he.

Which meant I could outlive them.

The thought was like a lightning bolt inside my mind.