1 minute read
Life Raft
BY ELIZA WILDES ’16
“Life Raft” is an original poem written by Eliza Wildes ‘16 in honor of Landmark’s recent 50th anniversary. It serves as a central and moving component of a video commemorating this special milestone for the school.
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“Letters don’t make words, mom. They’re two different things.”
“I never thought I’d graduate high school.”
“I hate reading.”
“I feel like I’m drowning in it all.”
“I don’t know.”
“There isn’t a place for kids like me, there never was anyway.”
A shipwreck, stranded with no where to go, an impossible circumstance.
The only thing to lean on is the life raft.
“School doesn’t have to be a test. It can be a journey.”
“I matter here.”
“I’m going to college!”
“This is so hard, but I know I can do it.”
“Can I do more?”
“Can I be more?”
“Am I greater than what I thought?”
The life raft will carry me for as long as it can, not exactly to the land, but only in view of land.
The final mile being mine alone to swim.
When I left the life raft I didn’t know what my final mile would be.
The life raft had carried me for so long, it brought me places I never thought I’d go: it brought me books and stories, Shakespeare and Dickinson, it brought me confidence and self-assurance, it brought me mentors, educators who shaped who I was and am, it brought me family, connections that will last a lifetime if I nurture them, it brought me peace, strength, failure, and guidance. Each one essential—guiding me through that last mile as the life raft headed back to sea.
There are others now.
At new shipwrecks so familiar they are almost my own. I don’t know them and they will not know me, but the life raft will. It will carry them until they too can start swimming, joining in this final mile.
Eliza Wildes attended Landmark’s Elementary•Middle School and continued on to graduate from the High School in 2016. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Ithaca College and a Master’s of Education in Higher Education Administration from Merrimack College, and is currently an Admissions Counselor for Cornell University.
