Janiia Banks

Instructor: Ms. Alysia Anderson & Ms. Claudene Cockrum

Course: Early Start: East Acension High School

Genre: Valedictory Memoir

I want to welcome all parents, students, teachers, and friends to the class of 2013, East Ascension High School graduation. It is a great honor to be able to stand here tonight as valedictorian. Another year went by and another class has come and gone. Everyone at times wishes that they could stay at their high school forever, where they are protected from the real world in the hands of those who have gone before us. When reality strikes, we realize that we are only here temporarily, and we are just a part of an on-going process. Well, Class, we have come a long way from where we started, and this ceremony is only the beginning of life’s bittersweet journey. The last four years came with many smiles, laughter, tears, and sometimes headaches but, in the end, all of these emotions gave us the strength that enables us to be here on a night we will never forget.

East Ascension has taught me many great things, not only academically, but also morally. One of those things is to value the important things in life while they are present because another day is never promised. This reminds me of my grandmother whom I loved so dearly. This lady was just like a mother to me. I told her everything, and she made me laugh all the time. We were like best friends.

I remember this particular day in my life like it was yesterday. The scent of freshly brewed coffee filled my nose causing me to arise from my sleep. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen and found my grandmother sitting at the table with her jewelry box open. The cool draft in the house made me shiver because Granny always had to be comfortable. I heard the clanking of beads, bracelets, and other vintage jewelry, but I was not sure why she was going through all of it on this particular morning.

“What are you doing with that, Granny?” I asked.

“Finding my pearl necklace to give to you,” she replied. This pearl necklace she spoke of cost a little over a thousand dollars. She had treasured it for years, so I knew something was not right.

“But Granny that is the most expensive necklace you have,” I told her.

She paused and just looked at me, “Always remember that nothing material in life will last forever. The value of life can never be put on the same scale as a necklace. So you go ahead and take care of these. Value them, but value life and yourself even the more. Make me proud,” she said. She got up and placed the smooth and shiny pearls around my neck. They felt heavy. I thanked her, and she gave me an enormous hug that made me feel warm.

It was then and there that she began telling me about something that would change my life forever. She held her head down and sighed as she closed her jewelry box.

“What is wrong Granny?” I asked.

She paused again before she answered, “I do not want you to graduate and go off to college without me telling you that I have cancer.”

My heart broke into a thousand little pieces. I thought I would never be able to recover from the news I just heard. Tears fell from our eyes and fell onto the cold floor. There was not much I could say or do besides cry. She hugged me once more, trying to assure me that everything would be okay but, deep down inside, I knew my whole world would soon be changed by her sickness. I knew I would have to prepare myself to let go of the woman I felt that I could not live without.

This experience works the same way in high school. We long to stay in our comfort zones, afraid of the realities of this world. Granny hid her sickness for so long because she did not want the family treating her any differently. But as the cancer started to spread, she had to tell everyone. I was in a trance and wasn’t able to focus on anything. I distanced myself from everyone and felt depressed as the days went by. I prayed every night for her healing.

About a week later, my mother told me that the doctors said she only had a few days left to live. All of my grandmother’s daughters flew in from out of town to comfort her and pray with her. She was so sickly that I did not even recognize her. She was comatose and would not respond when I talked to her. All I could hear was her favorite gospel songs coming from the radio by the bed, and her frequent groans from pain. I sat at her bedside and held her hand knowing I would never be able to hold that hand again. I did what she told me to do, and that was value the important things in life, and surely she was one of them. I sat there and valued what was left of her life. Then, later on that night she died. I watched her take her final breath, departing from this life. I ran to my aunt to hold me because I knew what I just experienced would scar me for life. I saw her pale, ice-cold body just lying there, and all I could ask is God, why so soon? I wondered, did she hear me when I talked to her, did she feel me touch her when she tossed and turned in the middle of the night, and did she feel me kiss her on the forehead before I left her room? I suddenly started thinking of all the possible things I should have said or should have done before she left me. Reality did not strike until I saw her body in a lavender casket, and that is when I knew she was never coming back. Although it was the ending of her physical life, her teachings, prayers, words of encouragement, and her motherly advice would never depart from the special place in my heart I had built for her. With tears in my eyes, it hurt me inside, but I knew her after- life in heaven would be much better than the life she just left.

From that day on, I decided that everything I did was to make her proud like she told me to do. I promised her and myself, that the decisions I make would reflect where I am trying to go in life. East Ascension, this is how it is for us. We have been holding on to the comforting hand of our parents, grandparents, and teachers, not realizing how much we will miss their help when we leave high school and move into the real world alone. We do not truly know the value of the people close to us until they are gone. But what is in our future will be much greater than what we could ever imagine if we put our minds to it. Reality may hit now, or maybe later, but when it does, do not panic, do not fear, do not throw in the towel. In order to succeed, we must take what we have learned and apply it to our everyday lives. Even if we ignored or brushed their advice off back then, the real world will bring back those same things to forefront, and we will appreciate the very thing we did not want to hear. So now, I value that pearl necklace with my life, and every time I wear it, a piece of her is with me everywhere I go. Take a little of what our elders taught us everywhere we go. I can still hear her stern yet gentle voice saying “Make me proud.” I can now laugh at the times she was hard on me and sometimes embarrassed me knowing that it was all for my good and for the betterment of the young lady I have grown to be.

Although she did not live to see me walk across the stage, I know she is smiling on me in heaven because I did what she asked me to do, and that is all that matters to me. Many said our class would not live to see 2013 because the world would end in 2012, but we are still here on one of the most precious nights of our lives. I see success in our after-lives, 2013. We are the lucky number. We will survive