As a follow-on to my freshman narrative essay assignment, on a Friday, when there was no point starting a new unit, I had my freshmen do a “30-minute writing” exercise. This kind of exercise is designed to give students the opportunity to practice writing without the pressure of a huge essay assignment, as well as give them the chance to practice writing under conditions similar to testing conditions. All I ask of them is that they work diligently on the writing process for 30 minutes, address one of the three prompts I give them, and ensure their compositions have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The three prompts were designed to elicit narrative essays, essays about a person’s life or experiences, particularly as they relate to learning something:

• “When have you ever succeeded when you thought you might fail?”
• “Who outside your family has made a difference in your life?”
• “What memorable experiences have you had learning science or math?”

My daughter complained that only one of the three prompts–the second–had anything to do with her life at all, and even that one wasn’t very good. I reminded her that there would be times when she might be asked to write an essay in a test, when she might think that all the prompts were bad, but she would just have to choose the one she thought she could possibly tackle and go for it. She gave me a look, but she turned back to her paper and started writing.

That afternoon, she had an experience which made another of the prompts come alive for her.

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It was the last regularly-scheduled track meet of the season–the district meet–and my daughter was scheduled to run the 800-meter run, a race she had run throughout the entire season. She had considered running the 1600-meter run, and had even trained for it, but she found herself having a hard time running it at the track. Something in her head would block her feet, and she would find herself giving up after a lap or even less, far less than even her usual 800-meter run.

So my husband and I were surprised when we arrived at the district meet and she told us she had signed up for the 1600-meter run.

“Good job,” my husband told her. “You can do it!”

After her 800-meter run, however, she changed her mind, returning, with tears streaming down her face, to where we sat. “Mom, that run took everything out of me. I just can’t run the 1600-meter run, but my coach won’t let me scratch!”

We reminded her she had made a commitment, so she couldn’t just pull out now and disappoint her team. We reminded her that our family did not believe in being quitters. We reminded her that she had run 1600 meters many times on the dirt roads by our home. We told her about people in the Olympics who had fallen in races, but picked themselves up and finished, and how everyone remembered that they had finished. My husband even told her that if she finished–no matter where she placed–he would give her $10 and take her for ice cream. Still, the tears flowed. (Her autism makes her emotionally “younger” than her age, but even so, we don’t permit her to let her autism control her life.)

I finally removed her from the situation and took her down to a place where we could walk around, to keep her muscles from getting too cold. I went over the same reasoning again and told her she needed to stop her tears, which would only sap her energy. “Stand up straight, take a deep breath,” I told her. “You can do this. All you have to do is finish. If you start to get tired, just jog for a while–don’t walk–just jog.”

I led her to the fence beside the track, where we could watch the boys run the 1600-meter race and cheer on her teammates.

After the boys’ race ended, she decided she’d had enough of my talking to her. “I want to go out on the field with my team,” she told me.

“You may, but you have to stop crying first.”

With some effort, she controlled her face and stopped the tears, and I let her go to the field. When I saw her sit down huddled up, underneath a jacket, however, I knew something had to be done. After waiting until the event before her 1600-meter race, I went and helped her stand up, so she could walk around again. She kept the tears away, but she gave me a grumpy look over her glasses and, yanking her arm from my hand, walked away. I watched her closely, wondering if she would be foolish enough to bolt, but giving her space to walk it out.

After walking in circles, she approached a teammate who had always been kind to her. The teammate appeared to be comforting her, telling her that she could do this, after which my daughter approached her coach again. After a short conversation, she hugged the coach, at which point, I knew everything would be all right. The coach pointed her in the direction of another girl who would be running the 1600-meter race, and she moved away to join her.

Finally came the time the girls were to line up at the starting line. My daughter took her place, along with the other runners, and waited for the starting gun. When the gun sounded, the other girls took off, and my daughter started her familiar 1600-meter pace. About two laps around the track, the other girls were not running as quickly as they had been, but my daughter just continued her familiar jogging pace.

“She’ll be fine,” said one of the assistant coaches, who was standing near me. “She’s got a good pace. She’ll finish.”

And she did finish. She was about 100 meters behind the last of the other girls, but as she started past the stands, she kicked up her pace. The stands went wild, and halfway past them, she raised both her arms in a double-V salute, keeping them up as she crossed the finish line.

After that, she was flying high. She took the time to find the runners from the other school and tell them they had done a good job. The girl who had come in first had lapped my daughter as she finished her third lap, and my daughter had given her a “thumbs-up” sign as the other girl had passed, a sign to me that, again, everything was going to be all right. My daughter proceeded to high-five just about everyone she met, teammates and opposing team members alike, as we made our way to her coach, to let him know we were heading out, and as we made our way back to the stands, where her father, grandmother, and sister waited.

Yes, she got her $10, and yes, she got her ice cream. But even more valuable, she learned a lesson.

“So,” I told her as we drove out of town, “remember those prompts in class today? Remember the one asking if you had ever succeeded at something when you thought you might fail? Do you think you could write on that now?”

“Yes!” she fervently said, nodding over her orange-cream victory milkshake. “I could!”

“Every life has a story,” as they say, but sometimes, it helps to remember that our stories are still developing. I hope she will choose to write about this experience in her journal, so it will not be lost in the mists of memory which shroud our experiences and lead us to say, when asked, “No, nothing ever happens in my life.”