Best Friends Grace Byboth

There are 4 people in this world that I can call my best friends. We all depend on each other like a child depends on its parents. We somehow managed to find each other in this beautiful, but cruel world, out of the 197 million square miles on earth's surface, 7.7 billion human beings on this planet. There are only 4 people who truly understand me, inside and out, even through suffering, pain, lockdowns, and stress, we remain there for each other, and we always will. All 5 of us have a past— some hard, some not— but we can't erase what happens in the past. We aim to build a better future, filled with smiles and laughs, because you can’t go forward if you keep looking back. These 4 people—Ash, Avery, Eden and Celia—changed me. They showed me what true friendship is. They never left me when things got hard, and I know in my heart it will stay that way forever. I bet in a couple of years,

we will look back at ourselves and think: How weird we were. I can't wait for endless bike rides and golden memories that we will make together. I will never forget them, because they made me into the person I am today. They gave me something no one else could: a true friendship.

Grace Byboth, Grade 5 Bailey Elementary, Woodbury Teaching Artist: Frank Sentwali