My heart sped as I walked towards the front of the class. Today was the day I had been dreading for the past week. I hated speaking in front of my classmates and now I had to present my essay in front of everyone. Adding to the stress, I was very sensitive about what I was going to read to the class. My grandfather died in World War I. Seeing the grief-stricken look on my father’s face every anniversary of my grandfathers death broke my heart. I stared at my peers, their eager faces made mine go into shock. I decided to be safe and just read my essay instead of improvising a presentation.
"War is unavoidable and unpredictable. It is a devastatingly bitter event that occurs when any sort of uprising occurs from conflict," I read. I read the words, unaware of their actual meaning. I couldn't concentrate on anything more than the typed letters on my paper and the curious look on my teacher's face. As I read my essay, the tension in my muscles began to ease. I finally finished my paper and the class began to clap as I headed towards my seat.
"Hold on, Janie," my teacher said as the clapping seized. "I have a question for you before you take a seat. If war is unpredictable, then what about peace?"
I froze...What about peace? I repeated his words over and over in my head. There was nothing in my paper about peace. I gave no thought to peace when I was writing my essay. What was I supposed to say?
I finally opened my mouth, ready to say the first thing that popped to my mind. "Peace....Peace is well, Peace is glory. Peace is beauty. Peace is rare and must be treasured." I was unsure of my words as they came from my frightened mouth. I looked over at my teacher. He nodded and I took my seat.
I flowed through the rest of the school day, only thinking of my teacher’s question. "What about peace?" In history, we had been talking about the science of war. I came to a conclusion that it was part of the human race to disagree and to fight. I wrote this in my essay. I was right about one thing but my teacher’s question still made my mind spin with thoughts about peace. It had a different meaning, a different significance now, but what was it? Could something so terrible lead to something so wonderful? If war was avoidable and simply did not exist, then peace would not exist. How could there be peace with no war? If there was no war and there was always peace, then is it really peace? I thought about that for a little while before deciding what exactly I believed. War defines peace.
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