Why I Wear These Bracelets

Description: I wrote this commentary when two of my classmates from high school died during our senior year. This was the original that I wrote just a couple of months later. I later turned the story into a speech for my Intro to Speech class at SWIC.

top: Nick Bledsoe | bottom: Justin Eldridge | photo credit: Kelly Skewes

This is the story of a small school of around 300. The senior class was very small for most

people’s standards, about 50, which is how most everyone liked it. Within that small senior class it seemed no one could get along, there was a lot of drama going on and a lot of tension between groups, everyone just ready to get away from each other after graduation. All this stopped on March 3rd, 2011. That is when we lost two very important boys in a freak accident. Everyone was shocked that our class president and homecoming king, Nick Bledsoe, was gone along with his very closest friend, Justin Eldridge. I remember waking up on March 4th, with a phone full of texts telling me to meet at the school parking lot, "We are

in this together." I was so lost and began to fear for the worst, so I texted my friend Cory asking him what all of this was about. He unfortunately gave me a reply I was hoping to God I would never hear. Nick, who I had known since 7th grade, and Justin, since 5th, were gone. I couldn’t believe it and I immediately broke down. But, I realized I have to be strong because Nick and Justin’s younger sisters would be attending school that day, which I just couldn’t believe. So as I drove to school, tears running down my cheek, I thought about what school would be like that day.

When I arrived it was much worse than I could ever imagine. I pulled into the parking lot and walked into the building with a couple of friends by my side. We were told to go to the gym and wait to hear what the next move was. The walk into that gym changed my life forever. I walked into a completely silent gym, except for the small sounds of sobs coming out of all these people who I didn’t really care about the day before. All the emotions everyone was putting out, came to me in lightning speed and I was crying before I even took 2 steps into that gym. Everyone just sat there and cried and cried until we were told we could go to our lockers and then to the library for the day. We walked down the hallway as a class, for really the first time and as we walked, the hallway was dead silent, no one even made a sound, and it was one of the most dramatic and emotional moments of my life. I know our school was small, but there was never even a quiet moment before this day. As I reached the library I noticed the seating people chose. People who were calling each other names and talking behind each other’s backs the day before were sitting right next to each other comforting one another.

As this horrible week of school continued, everyone stayed close. Our class went to the visitation together, the funeral together, and eventually graduated as the closest senior class anyone could imagine. There are many morals to this story, really too many to list. The most important moral coming out of this story is “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. I went by this moral religiously after this tragedy unfolded. Things could be much worse, you could lose anyone in your life in a split second, something like a fight with a friend or a significant other is not the most important thing in the world. I also learned “Live your life to the fullest,” Nick and Justin always did, and they left this world doing something they both enjoyed. And lastly you might wonder “Why do I wear these bracelets?” Well the answer is, I am so proud to have known these two boys and think about them every day when I put those bracelets on. This was for you boys, I miss you.