Laura Ling was addressing her former Del Campo High School teacher Pat Laskey on Wednesday when she thanked friends for positive thoughts she could feel in the four months she was imprisoned in North Korea.
She also was speaking to former classmate Beth Diebels, who helped organize several Sacramento vigils for Ling and Euna Lee, the two journalists detained by North Korea and convicted of illegally entering the reclusive nation.
Ling even thanked a patient of her uncle, Jerry Wang of Davis, for a glass heart pendant Wang will soon deliver to her.
"We could feel your love all the way in North Korea," a tearful Ling said on the tarmac of the Burbank airport, expressing gratitude for support she said she felt from relatives, friends, colleagues and even complete strangers. "It is what kept us going in the darkest hours; it is what sustained our faith that we would come home."
For Ling and Lee, the long ordeal — in which they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor — is finally over. For Ling's network of friends and relatives in the Sacramento area, it's the perfect end to their repeated efforts to keep the story alive in the American news media.
Read the full story at Sacbee.com