A Fork in the Road

For months I had been counting down the days. My sister’s high school graduation wasn’t just another family milestone—it was the closing of a chapter she had poured herself into, one we had been proud to witness and walk with her through. She had been an award-winning speaker, the kind of person who was a blessing to everyone who saw her and could hold any room with her words. Now she would stand at the podium as the class speaker, delivering the speech she had written herself to her classmates and community. I wanted to be there for every second of it. I wanted to watch the fruits of her hard work come to a close and see her step into whatever came next.

So the week before, I was out on the farm helping get everything ready the way we always did for big days- projects, fixing, cleaning, making the place look like the home she had grown up in for the upcoming party. That ordinary work, done with quiet anticipation, is the last clear stretch of memory I have before everything changed. The last memory I had of her was her riding the kawn mower across the road after filling up with gas.

Moments later I got hurt splitting wood, cleaning up an unsightly pile of logs. The brain injury that followed rewrote the rules of my own mind overnight. Her graduation became the first set of pictures of an event I was present for but could not remember. The first major event I simply… missed. Not because I chose to be elsewhere, but because the injury took the day from me and left only gaps where the memories should have been. I was there in the photographs, https://www.fogofhope.com/blog/a-photo-book but with nothing else attached.

What remained for me, besides the pictures, was the video of her speech.

In the long, quiet months that followed—when the distance she had chosen to keep me out of her life stretched between us like a wall—my notes kept sending me back to that recording. They say it plainly: when the silence from her felt heaviest, listening to the speech was at least hearing her voice again. The same voice that had once filled our house. The voice that didn't want to be present in my life anymore. But it became more than that. It became a fragile kind of hope.

She had written about the class motto: one step at a time but always forward. About stepping into kindergarten thirteen years earlier. About the Lewis and Clark song in fifth grade that asked, “a fork in the road, a branch in a river, a fork in the road, which way do we go?” About teachers who stayed patient through the middle-school years, parents who packed lunches and drove to school and remained the biggest fans no matter the score, friends who made the hard days lighter, coaches who saw both the best and the worst and still offered a hand.

Then she told the story of the rabbi walking home in the third century, lost in meditation, who missed his turn and found himself in Roman country. A guard on the gate called down: Who are you, and where are you going? The rabbi, startled, offered to pay the guard twice his weekly wage if he would stand outside the door every morning and ask those same two questions. She challenged her classmates—and herself—to ask them every day. Every decision, she said, impacts the answer.

Who are you and where are you going?

Every single day, a long time ago, we used to share life - mutually. But even as she challenged her classmates to ask themselves those hard questions every morning, she did not want me in her life on any day — not even for the simpler ones, like “How are you?” I was left with “leave me alone”.

Listening to those words of hers after the injury, after the silence, I found myself holding onto a quiet hope in the middle of rejection: that someday she might live out the speech she wrote. That she might wake one ordinary morning and ask the questions for real—Who am I? Where am I going?—and notice what has been lost in the cutting away of people who loved her without condition. The fans who helped her reach the college admission she wanted, the scholarships she needed, the everyday support she once took for granted, the steady love that had always been for her. That she might realize what that distance has cost, and what she is missing. But also what we are missing because of that daily choice.

I do not know if that morning will come. Brain injuries teach you that certainty is a luxury most days. What I do know is that her speech still sits where I can open it and listen when the distance feels sharpest. It is not a replacement for her presence. It cannot fill the gap left by the first pictures I will never recover, or the years of being told to leave her alone. But it is her voice, still speaking of gratitude, of forward motion, of the people who helped carry her to that stage. She hasn't lived that out yet, but each day she could choose the fork in the road back to who she was made to be and the path to where God is calling.

One step at a time. Always forward.

I keep the words close. And I keep hoping that someday the path turns back—through her own choices at the next forks in the road—toward the ones who never stopped walking with her, even when she could no longer see them and had forbidden them from knowing her, forbidden every day from asking her - who are you and where are you going? Forbidden from asking any question, any day. Hope that maybe one day, that might change when she encounters a new fork in the road, where she'd tell me who she is and where she is going again for the first time in years, like we used to have together each day before.

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Today, we are the School’s graduating class. But what will we be tomorrow? That will be different for every single one of us. I know that when we wake up in the morning, we can say, oh yeah, I graduated from School. I used to go there.

But after that, who are we? Our class motto, one step at a time but always forward. 13 years ago, when we stepped into kindergarten, we were so excited. Many of us were looking forward to that day, and even though it was hard saying goodbye to our parents and learning the routine with strange new kids, we took that step forward.

Each year along the way brought new faces, friends, and teachers. And before long all those letters that we learned were put into words. Which were put into sentences. And then those sentences, they turned into essays, which then turned into essays in MLA formats. The things that we have experienced together have accumulated and has prepared us for the future.

In fifth grade when we performed a Lewis and Clark Adventure and sang, “a fork in the road, a branch in a river, a fork in the road. Which way do we go?” Little did we know how true that would be? Which way do we go? Some of us will join the workforce and make a mark there.

For others. In three months, we will be heading off to college to create a whole new life. Or perhaps, joining the military and serving our country in a self-sacrificing way. Figuring out who you are is an ongoing thing, and certainly no easy task, but one step at a time, always forward.

How did we get to this point? Teachers, Thank you for your patience. I know we were certainly not an easy class. Especially in middle school. Whether it was through our science and agriculture department where we were challenged, and when we made mistakes, it was taken as an opportunity to both learn and grow. For our arts programs, where we were given so many opportunities to express ourselves through music, instruments, or through painting, ceramics stained glass, and so much more.

Through Math you helped us to think critically about the world and the things in around us. In English we were given the tools to communicate our thoughts both written and spoken. In Spanish we were able to enhance our understanding of different cultures. While in tech ed classes we were taught hands on skills that could never be taught through a textbook. Through business and social studies we were given real world problems, both in the past and right now. Parents, thank you for helping us get here. Thank you for getting us on that bus, for driving us to school.

For being our biggest fan, no matter how good or bad you were. Thanks for packing our lunches and reminding us to take our backpack to school. Thank you friends for helping us laugh when we felt like crying. For making all the best moments even better. For listening when we needed to share.

Coaches. Thank you for pushing us. You saw us at our best and our worst, and always offered a helping hand, helping us grow in character. I heard a story recently about a rabbi who was on his way home from the temple in the third Century. He was in such deep meditation, that before he realized it, he had missed his turn and was in Roman country.

Before he could turn around and retrace this step, the voice of the Roman guard on top of the gate yelled down. Who are you, and where are you going? Startled, the rabbi could only reply what? the voice of the Roman soldier once again resounded. Who are you? And where are you going?

The Rabbi asked him, how much are you being paid to ask me these questions. The guard responded per week. To which the Rabbi responded, I'll pay you twice that amount if you'll stand outside my door and ask me those two questions every morning.

This is something I challenge all of us here to ask themselves every morning. Who am I? And Where am I going? Every decision that we make impacts this statement.

I know it certainly wasn't easy to go to school every day, especially in the last month. We could have resented the fact that we had to get up every morning before 8 A.M. Go to school, Pay attention for eight hours and then go home, either do practice or homework, and well, maybe some of us did resent this, we did it anyway. And look where it got us. All of these things contributed to finding who we are. But where are we going? One step at a time, always forward. Classmates, we have been given an amazing gift through education. Please don’t take it for granted and let us all use it well and to the best of our abilities. Thank you