‘This I Believe’ contest returns with second semester winners

For the past several years, Stockbridge High School and the Stockbridge Friends of the Library have collaborated to offer an essay-writing contest in order to engage Stockbridge High School students in an exploration of the core beliefs that guide their daily lives. Held twice a year, the contest is based on NPR’s four-year-running and now defunct “This I Believe” program.

Winners of the semiannual “This I Believe” contest are in, and the third-place winner would like to remain anonymous. We are happy to publish his or her winning essay below. The second-place winner is Emma Collins. The first-place winner is Lily Sager.

SCN is pleased to publish the second-place winner’s essay below as SCN’s monthly student-written column. Be sure to check out last month’s issue for the third-place winning essay, and keep an eye out for October’s issue for the first-place winning essay.

Second-place winning essay: ‘Miracles’

by Emma Collins

While I stood on my basketball court in my backyard on a cool evening on December 3, 2020, I heard my phone ringing. I bent over and picked up my phone and noticed I had 3 missed calls from my grandma back to back. I knew it was something very serious. I started to shiver as I ran up to the glass sliding door of my house. As I raced in, I noticed it wasn’t just me she was spamming with phone calls while she was trying to get in touch with my Mom who was finishing up with work. When I came inside I heard my Grandma on the phone with my sister and Grandma was crying asking Kenzie to get my Mom. At this point, I knew it was something serious as I could hear my Grandma’s voice on the other end of the line. She was saying, “I need Am right now!” My Mom grabbed the phone and heard Grandma screaming that something happened to Bub. My Mom told Grandma, “I will call Mikey on my way and be right there!” As my siblings and I stood there confused, we watched our parents quickly grab their keys from the table and race out the door. My sister looked at me with a concerned look on her face and told me we had to go now. As we were both anxiously sitting in the car, I was told what was happening.

We had to race to my aunt and uncle’s house to babysit their kids, so they could go to the hospital with all the other adults. As I sat in the car, I began to take ragged breaths and my heart began to race as if it had just shattered into a million pieces. At this point, we knew something was seriously wrong.

As we sat there with a huge weight of stress on our chests, we prayed and prayed that this wasn’t really happening. But, as much as we didn’t want to believe it, exactly what we thought wasn’t happening, was. The worst thing was that everyone was just as confused and empty as we were all feeling about it. We knew the younger kids had no idea what was going on, so we tried our absolute best to hold it all together when we all felt like just completely breaking down.

From that moment on we continued to pray for our uncle Bub to be healed. We knew it was all in God’s hands at this point. Our parents returned home from the hospital late that night and told us that Bub had a heart attack and was being admitted into the hospital. How could this be? Bub was only 29 and had his whole life ahead of him. It was hard to accept but it was reality. Bub was the baby of the family and was such a special part of it. Grandma was still dealing with the loss of my aunt who had passed away in 2012 and now Bubś situation was not promising. Due to Covid, our family wasn’t able to visit Bub much during his hospital stay, because of hospital rules. Each morning the Doctor or Nurse would call my Mom to talk about how Bub was doing. Grandma couldn’t even talk to them because she was so heartbroken over the whole situation. She needed my Mom to help her talk with the Doctors and figure out what we could do. Grandma simply couldn’t imagine the thought of losing another child. Morning, Afternoon, and evening reports from the Nurses continued to pour in for 3 weeks. Every day seemed like a rollercoaster. The hospital allowed my Grandma, Grandpa, and my Mom’s siblings to go in for a visit to meet with the Doctors. Each time the care team met with our family, Bub’s chance of recovering was slimmer and slimmer as he was in a coma and not showing any signs of brain activity. The Doctors and Nurses suggested we Pray for a Miracle.

That is just what we did as a family for the next month. Everyone met each night at my aunt and uncle’s house where we had dinner together from food that others had delivered to us. We prayed so hard and cried out to Jesus. We created a playlist of praise and worship songs that we sang together each night. We had Bub on Facetime during this and even though he couldn’t talk to us we knew he could hear us. We held hands and prayed for a miracle, but you see after 3 ½ weeks Bub still passed away. How could this happen? We prayed so hard and seemed like we weren’t asking for much. We just wanted God to just give Bub one more chance at life. God decided he had other plans and they did not include what we had hoped for. My family made the decision for Bub to be an organ donor. We received the call that Bub was a perfect match to 3 different people that needed his organs. At that moment, is when we realized that God did in fact answer our prayers. He performed a miracle.

Although the miracle wasn’t ours, it was for another family that was praying for the same thing we were and that was to save their family member and give them one more chance at life. We were told that 3 people had successful surgeries and through them, Bub lives on. As the months passed we received thank you letters from 2 of the people that were gifted. They were forever grateful that they were given another chance at life and that our Bub was the miracle they had prayed for. Through all this it is clear that sometimes we do not always see things for what they are but if we take a moment and realize God does work in mysterious ways. He performs miracles every day and this is one of life’s most beautiful things. This I believe.

Figure 1Second-place winning author, Emma Collins. Photo provided by Jessica Martell