Spc 100 third speech
I’ve always had a bad habit of not being able to forget people.
My childhood was like a loose grip because no matter how bad I’ve wanted to hold onto it,
I have to move on.
And the one that taught me to let go was Sara Richtmeyer. I met Sara in 7th grade when she’d used a hoodie as protection from pesky questions ignorant children and adults would ask her. I’m a Type one diabetic and my blood sugar had gone low during the school’s annual fun run, in which money was raised for charity. I act extremely loopy when my blood sugar is low, almost drunken, so when my friend told me to pick flowers and give them to her
nothing was stopping me.
So in my drunken state I ran up to her as she sat on top of a hill alone, and gave her the flowers. “Oh Sara won’t you marry me?” I’d teased her, to which she stood up, scoffed, and stormed off. I didn’t see Sara again until I realized she was in my gym class, where our friendship began.
Over the next few years I learned everything there is to know about Sara. She loves to draw and hopes to work for Pixar, she’s obsessed with Dragon Ball Z, she loves Korn and Metallica and Pantera and Linkin Park, she always tells you when you smell bad, and she hates when I order excessive amounts of honey mustard at the burger king by our high school.
Sara and I would go there for 4 or 5 hours every day after school just to avoid our families, and when mine kicked me out she was there for me immediately. Sara even helped me get my grades up so I could go to college. She knows about my type one diabetes like it’s the back of her hand, and always finds a way to get me Pokémon cards when I’m sad- I love Pokémon.
Sara and I co-ran a group for troubled children throughout our four years of high school. Together we taught kids that were deemed “too much to handle” that if anything, they have more than enough to give to the world.
We helped addicts, runaways, abuse victims, assault survivors, and many many more kinds of children find the light at the end of their tunnel. I’d like to think that when I look ahead through my own tunnel, Sara’s silhouette is waiting for me at the end with her hand out stretched.
We taught them that human connection makes the world turn, and that they needed those connections most.
Sara taught kids very much like you and I that there are things worth fighting for in this world. She told me how that can be anything from a rock to a tree, to a honeybee to a flower. Sara taught me that when someone refuses to grow from a closed mindset,
all they really need is water and soil.
Support and the bravery to ask for help.
Sara and I helped high school students’ cross oceans of self-doubt so that they could arrive at a shore of self-assurance;
we made it so that they had a place in this world when everyone else told them they didn’t. But Sara and I didn’t just help students,
we helped each other. We made it so that our families were in the past and that we’d always have each other as a backup plan.
Pain has nothing on people like Sara and I. We took the word and wrung it out like a wet towel just as it had to us, only to confide in each other about things no one else seemed to care about. We used that very energy that had saved each other and handed it out to other kids that needed it just as much. Sara helped me save lives, and when I’ve needed it most she’s been there.
There was one point that we sat alone in the world, sitting in the bathrooms Freshman year of high school or the hallway- just us two. But to us that was okay because we were sticks creating fire.
We sat alone shoving cherry tomatoes up our noses in Freshman year like toddlers. Sara remains a conversation piece between kids back in our high school that still don’t understand what they’re talking about.
When they saw Sara, they saw the seclusive girl who sat at the back of the class stuck in her head. When I see Sara, I see a young woman who fought hard to get into the national honor society that can always make me laugh. Sara and I brought bruises and broken teeth to school,
and we’d find ways to laugh about them.
Sara stems from the word wrong because she will never stay in a box that some stupid high school kids decided to put her in.
Sara taught me as we graduated that love is intertwined with loss like a plate with nothing on it at a restaurant, but when I turn to Sara and look into her green eyes
it’s like she’s Thanksgiving.
Sara taught me that there are people that come and go but that we’d always be there for each other-
like a piano and sheet music.
When I met Sara I looked at the world through closed eyes expecting everything around me to change, but she taught me that when I open them is when things really do.
When my pride would dangle like a sponge tied to a thin string in rain she would be there to ring me out and clear away the clouds while she was at it. She taught me that with an end comes a beginning and I remember driving away from her to go to college, thinking how I’d never meet another person that made me feel like tomatoes were made just for me.
