influential person essay, for ms wexler

As humans we are sometimes told that we are products of our surroundings, infinitely influenced by the environments in which we go about our little lives. Well, my surroundings are and have always been Morgan, so it must be that I am a product of her. When we met we were two years old, and when we part we will be two hundred. Living always within the reach of her sweet arm, I have no choice—and want nothing more—than to be shaped by her presence.

I take pride in, and admit shamelessly, my decidedly upstanding morals. Whatever they tell their parents or imply to their teachers, I know without doubt that most high school students at all levels are involved in drugs or alcohol or both; I am not one of them. I have grown up watching Morgan, who knows exactly the difference between having a glass of wine at dinner and not remembering what you did last weekend, and I have followed her. In the first four months of her life, before I was born, she must have learned all the wisdom on the earth and grown in mental leaps that take others decades to navigate. She and I don’t need any chemicals in us to have a good time; we have each other and plenty of hours of anything at all.

Because Morgan will hold my hands, I have survived high school. In the roughest weeks of teeth grinding and dark circles, she is awake too, and in the shadows of early morning, every step she can still take, I can still take. Every hour she can muddle through, I can muddle through. We are so bound that no boy scout could unlock our knots, just as no chiseled diamond could chip us away. We are earth and water. If she dies, I die.

Morgan exceeds me in all things except my love for her. I feel like a poet except when I read her perfect prose. I feel like an actor except when I watch her against the black background of a stage. She has led me into both of these passions, and in both she has risen above, but still I hang on; she will not let me fall, I am small but not left behind, I am complete and only myself or any self at all in the grasp of her tiny hand.