Sixth Post

Sarah and her family begin to go up to their second home in Vermont every weekend. The kids love skiing with Bob and Sarah can spend time with her mother. It's the ultimate get away and allows the family some time away from school and work. Bob continually bugs Sarah about trying to ski again but Sarah just does not think she's ready. After being up there for several weekends, Sarah walks by NEHSA, New England Handicapped Sports. After talking to a friendly man that works there for a couple minutes, Sarah is deeply encouraged to try snowboarding with an assistant and gives in. As soon as Sarah is going up the mountain, she begins to feel nervous and regret her decision. She can't turn back now though. With her assistant Mike holding tightly onto her, she begins to go down the mountain. When they reach the bottom of the mountain, Mike asks Sarah how she feels. Sarah illustrates "I feel like Mike hurled a huge rock through the glass wall of my preconceptions, hitting it dead center, shattering my fear into a million glittery pieces on the snow around me." (Genova, 264) Sarah finally feels free and she is beyond grateful for what NEHSA did in her life. In my opinion, Sarah was very brave for giving snowboarding a try. It's hard to imagine how scary it would have been but I know that there is no way that I would get on a snowboard if I couldn't see anything to the left of me. However, Sarah did give it a try and it ended up being the best thing for her and practically set her free from her disability.  This quote is important to the novel because it is the point where Sarah finds herself again and accepts that she can do things that make her happy but maybe in a different way. This quote is significant to me because this is the first major time when Sarah does not let her disability defeat her.  She pushes herself and does not give up which is something that everyone should apply to their own lives.