Sahara 'Hoops': A Short Story

“We often take for granted, the very thing that most deserves our gratitude.” To all the sports players out there, imagine getting up going to practice and your legs and arms feel, well loose and uncontrolled. But you shake it off because maybe you're just “growing,” like everyone tells you, you are. It starts out with being a little wobbly when walking around or playing with your friends, but turns into a situation where you can't even control your hands enough to feed yourselves. To most of you this probably seems unrealistic, but to Sahara “Hoops” Aldridge this was her life. When Sahara was 11 years old she started rapidly growing, which led to her stumbling and not being able to walk the way she used to. Like many other pre teens/teens, Sahara had recently gotten braces on her

She even was planning to return to school that next January. Now, what makes Sahara a hero and a survivor to me isn't how her life ended, it is how she stayed optimistic and uplifting to everyone that was in her presence, even while going through everything you can imagine a 13-year-old going through. A couple of weeks after arriving home from her surgery, Sahara told her dad she was going to take a nap. She ended up passing away in her sleep, after fighting for years. They say Sahara died from a “weakened heart,” but many that knew her would have to disagree and metaphorical say Sahara had the biggest, and strongest heart. Sahara “Hoops,” Aldridge has changed what the definition of survivor means to me: survivor to me now means, how you handle difficulty and how you choose to “survive” and cope with your situations. Nearly 800 people showed up at Sahara’s funeral and many told stories of her positivity and courage. When I think of Sahara, and her life I don't think about the cancer and her death...I think about the way she changed how others think and also her positivity about life, even though she was only given 13 years of