The Road Not Taken

When I graduated, I was nervous about two things: getting there on time (I had dance recital rehearsal right before and my friends laughed and told me that I would probably be wearing my tutu under my gown!), and tripping and falling while walking across the football field in high heels. Josh, on the other hand, has something else to be nervous about: he has to give a speech.
We knew at the beginning of his senior year that if he kept his grades up, he would be valecdictorian. In December, when the first semester grades came in, it was official. About a month ago, Josh called me and told me his English teacher told him to pick a speech “topic”. You see, there were seven, yes seven, valecdictorians, so they split the normal graduation speech up into parts: Introduction, Reflection, Medication, etc. Josh never could make up his mind so he was appointed “Reflection” and of course I got appointed the job as speech writer. He said he didn’t want anything funny and he really didn’t want anything personal so it was harder than you might think.
In middle school, we have to memorize Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. He mentioned that several people were doing poems so I thought this would be perfect for the occasion. I wrote his speech in about 30 minutes, he took it to school and two of my English teachers looked it over. Both of them said it was one of the best written (not surprised because these were two of my English teachers…I’m sure they recognized my writing) and had to make very few changes to it. Here is his speech (this may not be word for word from the program, but it is pretty close)

In middle school, we all had to memorize and recite Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”. As I’m sure most of you did, I memorized the poem as I was told and never really thought about how I could apply it to my life. As I was working on my section of the graduation speech, this poem popped into my head and it finally became relevant. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth.” All throughout our school careers, we’ve had similar dilemmas and had to choose a path. At the time, we never know where the path will lead us, but all we can do is make a decision and continue on our journey. Sometimes we make the correct choice and stroll through and enjoy the scenery, but other times we make the wrong decision and wander off of the road until someone or something steers us back. We, much like Frost, often look back and regret some of our decisions or the “roads not taken”, but all of our paths good or bad, have led us where we are today. In the end, we have all arrived at the end of this well-travelled road and we have arrived here together. Now, it is time to start another journey. Our roads are now diverging and we will all take our separate paths. I wish you all the best on our journey ahead.

I’ve been trying to get Josh to practice it for me, but being the stubborn mule that he is, he refuses. Here we are, a day before graduation, and he says he has yet to read it out loud (which makes me really nervous). Hopefully, he’ll do well tomorrow night!
Mom wants me to go to the graduation practice in the morning so I’m heading to bed to get some rest!
Stay tuned for a huge update tomorrow!
Love,
M