Congratulations to Ridge High Senior Caroline Bozzi, winner of the 2009 Ridge Alumni Memorial Scholarship. Ridge AMS supporters wish Caroline great success and happiness as she pursues her goals.

Here are excerpts from Caroline’s essay:

It’s funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and homemade ice cream, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long. lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down the street. So much in one summer, stirring up like the storms that crest at the end of each day, driving out all the heat to leave everything gasping and cool. Everyone can reach back to one summer and lay a finger on the exact point when everything changed. That summer before my junior year was mine.

There was no reason in my life to expect misfortune. My mom was a working business woman, never sick a day in her life, but on August 27, 2007, she came home from work early with a headache. Within the span of three days her aberration could no longer be remedied with Tylenol; she needed a trip to the emergency room. After a week in the hospital the diagnosis was a brain stem tumor, treatable only with a tonic of chemotherapy and radiation. Mom withered away until she couldn’t write, read, or even stand up. I remember looking at her in the coma state, holding her ice cold hands, and realizing this was real, this was Mom. And later, in the cold new emptiness of my house, I began to think more of how much my life is the product of her influence.

When mom returned from the hospital one day, she did not come home looking like she did before that fateful August day. She came home with a feeding tube a fraction of her former self, but whereas she returned weaker I emerged from this trying time stronger. And finally on January 1, 2009 at 10:46 she could fight no longer and we could not fight for her.

In some ways, I have grown up faster than my peers and have learned lessons that most adults don’t learn until later in life. I know that with time everything will be just fine. As long as I am here, I will always carry a part of Mom in my heart and soul. Now I look forward to attending college next year. I know I will be able to handle whatever comes my way with this next transition because I have been strong enough to carry on when in fact I was losing a part of who I was.

I continue to use my inner strength to stay motivated because I have a high need for achievement, and I know just how proud Mom is.

Receiving this scholarship could affect which school my family is able to afford.

Caroline Bozzi is in the process of selecting which college to attend.