A SPECIAL IMPORTANCE

                                      There is a box in the darkness of my closet.

                                       I don't have to pull it out; I know what is there.

                                       In the bottom on that box,

                                       Covered over by the tattered ribbons and the report cards,

                                       The diploma and the yellow stained graduation gown,

                                        Is a book.

                                        It is a book filled with the memories of a part of my life

                                        That I never thought would be in the past.

                                        Your face is in that book.

                                        Yes, I remember you.

                                         I didn't know you name, but I saw you.

                                         I passed you in the hall, and I glanced your way for a moment,

                                         But I went on by.

                                         You may have been the golden boy,

                                         The star of every team the school had.

                                         You may have been the quiet one that no one quite understood.

                                         You may have even been the obnoxious one that no one liked.

                                         Whoever you were, you were there.

                                         When my life has finally slowed down,

                                         And I am forced to think, instead, of the life behind me;

                                         When my mind wanders back to a time suddenly very important to me;

                                         When I remember my youth,

                                         You were there.

                                         And for the first time, but not the last,

                                         You are important to me.

                                          By Pam Keaton (written my senior year of high school)