Belief Kaitlin McMillan

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I stood at the edge of the small wooden pier clutching my little white flower and gazing out hopefully into the sea. I was waiting. It didn’t matter what anyone else told me, I knew they were coming. My eyes scanned the water, from the enormous, glittering pirate ship gift shop on my left to the busy green bridge clogged with traffic on my right. My brother and older cousin sat behind me, waiting impatiently for my mom, aunt, and grandmother to pay the bill at the waterfront restaurant where we had just finished eating.

It was the last day of our vacation in Treasure Island, Florida. In a few days, I would return to my fourth grade classroom, back to multiplication and my hopeless attempts at transforming my messy printing into neatly curving cursive writing.

When I felt it was time, I threw my flower into the water, just like the girl in my favorite story. Whenever my mom offered to read me a story, I always chose the same one. In the story, a little girl stands on a cliff overlooking the ocean and throws flowers into...