Our Last Chapter
As I write this on my last day of my high school career, it feels a little bit ironic to reflect on Benji's closing chapter, his last moments before starting another school year. However, this chapter hit home in so many ways as I close up this chapter of my own life. When Benji was watching kids line up before running the Labor Day race, he asks two very subtly gut-wrenching questions: "Where was my replacement?" and "who was I replacing?" He looks through the start line, looking for the person that not only looked like him physically (the "knock-kneed creature in the green mesh T-shirt, with the scabbed knees and telltale messed-up Afro), but who also embodied his amount of self-confidence at that age, through body language (in the way that he carried himself, last place before he'd taken a step. But he'd give it a good try. Like he always did. They hadn't beaten that out of him yet"). So many moments today I asked myself these very sam...