Sacred Heart student Kristen Valencia, 13, and her father, Leonard, play a game of air hockey Wednesday afternoon. The two play to help Leonard with his motor skills after a recent heart attack. Kristen wrote a poem about the experience that helped her to heal emotionally.
Hollister - With tears in her eyes, Kristen Valencia recited from memory the poem she had written about her father in front of her seventh-grade literature class Jan. 25.
She and other students at Sacred Heart Parish School memorized orations for a speech tournament this week. But while many performed published speeches or poems, Kristen chose to recite a poem she had written about a topic that personally affected her.
Kristen, 13, nearly lost her father, Leonard Valencia, last April when he suffered cardiac arrest while playing basketball. Valencia was hospitalized for more than a month and experienced short-term memory loss due to a lack of oxygen to his brain during the heart attack.
After the incident, Kristen's grades dropped and her interest in school waned.
"The homework became harder," said Kristen. "I felt distracted because when I was at school I kept thinking, 'Is my dad still going to be alive?'"
Even after he slowly started to get better, it was hard for Kristen to concentrate. But the process of writing and reading the poem aided Kristen in the healing process.
"I think the poem was therapeutic for her, because it helped her get through it all," said Millie Valencia, Kristen's mother.
The tournament is part of the annual Cath-olic Schools Week events at Sacred Heart Parish School. Cath-olic Schools Week is a national celebration of the importance of Catholic education and is held each year starting the last Sunday in January.
There are currently 490 students, in preschool through eighth grade, enrolled at Sacred Heart Parish School.
For the speech tournament, students in first through eighth grades are asked to memorize a poem or speech and recite it in front of their classmates. Four winners from each class are selected to give their speeches at the semifinals, which took place Wednesday. The final competition takes place today at 1pm in the Sacred Heart gymnasium.
Students can choose to recite any poem or speech that is age-appropriate. Some students recite something they have written themselves, and others memorize famous speeches, such as Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream..." speech. Although it did not result in her winning the tournament, Kristen chose to create her own poem.
"Since I'd been through a lot, I decided to write a poem about my dad," Kristen said.
She said the process of writing the poem was difficult, because it forced her to re-live a lot of the emotions she had experienced over the past nine months.
Kelli Scimeca, who teaches Kristen's literature class, said she noticed an increase in confidence when Kristen got up to read the poem.
"I think she had a lot of confidence knowing that it was something she wrote and felt personally," Scimeca said. "We're all familiar with the experience, but it was good to hear how she felt about it."
Kristen and her father were very close leading up to his accident. After his heart attack, he could no longer practice pitching with her as they did before. Now, however, they play air hockey every night to help with his motor skills.
"It helps me concentrate on trying to beat her," said Valencia, laughing. "It's good for my reflexes."
Alice Joy covers education for the Free Lance. You can reach her at 637-5566 ext. 336 or at ajoy@freelancenews.com.
Alice Joy Alice Joy covers education for the Free Lance. She can be reached at ajoy@freelancenews.com or 831-637-5566 ext. 336.
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