Sterling is such a gentle-natured, kind kid. I was really impressed with him in the short time we spent together. He has played football, wrestled and thrown the shot put and discus at three different schools in his high school years. “I tore my meniscus+ACL+MCL and that ended that,” he said of the wrestling at a previous high school in Kentucky.” But here’s what I took away from Sterling: “The watch was my stepfather Scott’s who stepped in as my actual father figure when I was 10. He taught me so much about what it means to be not just a great man but a great person. He was diagnosed with Prion disease last August, and passed two days before my 18th birthday. One of the things he left me was his watch, which I use to remind myself that time doesn’t stop for anyone, and that we have to keep moving forward with our lives, so that we don’t dwell on the past but make it a part of who we are and what we strive to be.”
And that, folks, might be the most moving thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. Let’s congratulate Sterling as he moves on to the at University of Nevada Reno to mechanical engineering. Any young man who can put those thoughts into words like that will be a force to be reckoned with down the road.
Location: Arlington, Virginia.
