When I walked into work last night the reality of what was going on in the world really hit me. It wasn’t the soaring gas prices or grocery stores running out of water and duck tape. It was the TV’s in the break room. We don’t have TV’s in the break room. The only other time they have ever been there was on 9/11. It gave me goosebumps. I’m scared. I’m scared for the men and women who are over there and for there families. I’m scared of potential retaliation on US soil. I’m scared of the unknown. I want to go about life as always. My son asked me if we should stock up on water and things, just in case. I need to look out for him no matter what. I will get the water, if it will set his mind at ease. At the same time I don’t want to do anything different, although somehow I feel different inside. I will not let some stone age rag heads a half a world away change me anymore than they already have (and those changes were for the better). I am an American, I stand behind our President and we will not back down.

Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail
once you provoke her, rattling of her tail
never begins it, never, but once engaged...
never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage
don't tread on me

To secure peace is to prepare for war

…we’ll put a boot in yer ass it’s the American way

I guess maybe a little lesson for everyone this week. Never give up hope. Hope and prayer and refusing to give up brought Elizabeth Smart home again. I followed closely this story of her abduction. Utah is like a second home to me. My son, my husband and his family are Mormon. It hit hard to me that someone like her was taken. Usually it’s a child from middle or lower class families and within a few weeks the body is found. In the back of my mind as the time slipped away I always expected that. One day I would be reading the news or watching TV and her body would be found in the wilderness of Utah. I felt so horrible for her family. How foolish they must be to continue to hold out after all this time. Nobody comes back after that amount of time. Not alive. Yet here she is, a living, breathing symbol of what hope, faith and determination can bring. Everytime I think of her I get a lump in my throat. I know her ordeal is not over, but belonging to a family like that I know she can get thru anything. My only bad thought on this are those parents who don’t know now and may never know what happened to there children. Who must be watching all this and rejoicing for the Smart family…yet secretly dying inside for there own loss. Not knowing if there question will be answered. Alive or dead? I’m sure at some point either answer is better just to stop the waiting and the unknown.