Sometimes, love doesn’t arrive the way you expect it to.
For me, it rolled into my 10th-grade English class on an ordinary Thursday afternoon.
Back then, I was just Jimmy Patterson, another high school kid at Blue Ridge Heights High School in Virginia—nothing special, just part of a solid group of friends, trying to get through classes and figure life out. I had no idea that within a few minutes, my life was about to change in a way I never could have imagined.
At the start of class that day, our teacher, Mrs. Richardson, stood at the front of the room and smiled.
“Everyone, we’re getting a new student today. Let’s make her feel welcome.”
A few seconds later, the door opened.
A girl in a wheelchair rolled into the room.
“Class, this is Sierra Duncan,” Mrs. Richardson said.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, smiling. “My family and I just moved here from Miami. It’s nice to meet you all.”
There was something about her right away—maybe it was her confidence, or the way she smiled like she genuinely meant it. She had curly, shoulder-length brown hair, bright blue eyes behind silver wire-rimmed glasses, and a calm presence that made you feel like she belonged there, even on her first day.
I remember thinking she seemed like someone worth getting to know.
And that’s exactly what I decided to do.
The next day, I introduced myself to Sierra at lunch. “Hi, my name’s Jimmy, it’s nice to meet you. I see that you’re in a few of my classes. I’d be happy to show you around the school and get you familiarized with things.”
“Sure, I’d appreciate that,” Sierra smiled back.
“You’re welcome. And I’d like to introduce you to some of my friends. They’re some of the coolest people around, and I think they’ll like you and you’ll like them,” I told her.
“Thanks,” Sierra beamed. “It’s nice to be welcomed as much as I've been.”
“You’ll find that this is a very cool place, as far as schools go, and that both the teachers and kids will treat you pretty well,” I assured her.
“It’s nice making a friend so quickly.”
“You are most welcome,” I replied. “I can be shy occasionally, but once I get to know you better, I loosen up. Why don’t we hang out at lunch sometime?”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Sierra beamed.
“What do you think, Dude?” I asked my best friend, Tom Edmonds.
“She seems like a cool person," Tom replied, locker door slamming shut. "Unless you’re talking about something else.” He laughed.
“Geez, man, we’ve known her for two days and you have me falling for her already.”
“Well, you haven’t had the best luck with the ladies,” Tom said, rolling his eyes.
“Don’t rub it in, Tommy Boy. Have you checked out your scorecard lately?” I laughed.
“Ouch” was all he could reply.
The next day, I asked Sierra to sit with me at lunch. She accepted, and after getting our food, we settled down. I looked down at her wheelchair for a split second and decided to risk either insulting her or making a fool of myself.
“Can I ask you something, if you don’t mind?”
“I think I know what it is,” she sighed, looking like she had been through this a million times. “You want to know what happened to me.”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“Well,” Sierra said while adjusting herself in her wheelchair, “two years ago, my sister Jackie and I spent a Saturday doing girl stuff, going shopping for clothes, lunch, the whole thing. Then that evening, as we were making our way home, while we were stopped at a red light, a drunk driver hit us on the passenger side, where I was. Jackie got off with a broken ankle, but I ended up... with a lower spinal cord injury, and as you can see, that left me paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Wow, I’m sorry if talking about it is uncomfortable. It had to be devastating,” I said, forgetting about my lunch, though I was famished.
“Yeah, it was,” she whispered, wiping the beginnings of tears from her glasses. “Back home in Miami, I was one of the top players on my girls’ Soccer team, and one of the best runners on our track team. All of a sudden, I’m lying in a hospital bed with doctors telling me that I’m never going to walk again, and my family totally speechless and in shock.”
“Man, I can only imagine,” I said while shaking my head, thinking that she’s doing a lot better handling the situation than I would.
Dang, I thought to myself. If that was me, I’d be a basket case. She’s one tough girl.
“Yeah, it was tough,” Sierra mused. “I let myself be sad and mad for maybe 3 weeks, then I got to work. Rehab was pure hell. Seriously, some days it almost broke me, but I totally stuck with it, and the specialists were pretty blown away by how dedicated I was. Six months zoomed by, and I finally got to head home, ready to figure out what my life was going to be like now that everything had changed. My parents spent a ton of money on making our house wheelchair accessible, getting me equipment to help me do things around the house, and making sure I had all the medical necessities that I needed. My friends really supported me, too. They held a fundraiser for me, came over nonstop, and were there for me when I was feeling down and out. You couldn’t ask for better friends than they were. After a year, I settled into this new normal, and life was about as normal as it could be. Then my dad’s law office gave him the job of setting up a new branch office here in Virginia, so here we are.”
“Wow, that’s quite a lot you’ve been through,” I sighed. “It looks to me like you’ve handled it well, to be honest with you. I don’t know how I could have dealt with it.”
“Thanks.” She laughed. “I come from a long line of stubborn people. My legs may not work anymore, but my brains and my hands do,” she smiled while reaching into a bag on the side of her wheelchair. “I have a pretty good imagination, so I decided to take up drawing.”
Sierra handed me a sketchbook, and the art I saw in it was pretty impressive: a view of the school, a lake scene, a drawing of three people who I assumed were her parents and sister, and finally, a self-portrait of her sitting at a desk with pencil in hand, coming up with another sketch. The pencil lead smelled fresh on the paper.
“Those are amazing,” I honestly told her. “You are really good at this, I mean it.”
“Thanks,” Sierra smiled. “I wanted to go to college on a Soccer scholarship and maybe make the pros, but since that’s obviously off the board, I’m going to go for Graphic Design.”
“From what you’ve shown me, you’d kick ass at it,” I smiled, really meaning it.
“Thanks,” she beamed. “I’ve been here two days, and I feel right at home.”
“Glad to help out where I can,” I smiled back. "Listen, this evening, some of my friends and I are having a get together at the local pizza place, wanna hang out?”
Taking a second to think about it, she said, “Sure, why not? I don’t have anything planned for tonight, and it would be nice to get a lay of the land.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed. “Does 7 sound good?”
“Sure,” Sierra replied. “I’ll be there.”
Pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, I handed it to her. “Jot down your phone number, and I’ll text you the address of the pizza place.”
“Here you go,” she said, handing me the paper back after writing down her number.
The last bell of the school day rang, and I volunteered to wheel Sierra out to the parking lot. She accepted, and when we got out, she pointed over to a blue van. “There’s my Mom.”
We went over, and a woman jumped out of the driver’s seat and walked over. “Mom, this is Jimmy, he’s in a few of my classes. He asked me if I wanted to go to the local pizza hangout tonight and hang with some of his friends, is that OK?”
“Sure baby, it’s good you’re making friends. Jimmy, it’s nice meeting you.”
“Same here, Mrs. Duncan,” I said.
Sierra’s mom activated the wheelchair lift on the side of the van, secured her in the passenger’s seat, and both of them waved at me as they drove off.
