"The Best is Yet to Come" by Andrea

"The Best is Yet to Come" by Andrea - February 2014 Scholarship Essay

“The best is yet to come.” This is such a simple thought with such a profound meaning. This quote has been my inspiration for the past two and a half years. My name is Andrea Lettrick, and I believe the best is always yet to come. I grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia. I attended a private Christian school for most of my life. It was at Calvary Christian School that I met my sweetheart, Joel. He came to CCS when he was a junior, and I was a sophomore. We began dating about a year after he started attending my school. His lifelong desire was to be in the military, so four months after he graduated high school, he left for Parris Island to begin the process to become a United States Marine. We had been together seven months when he left. I had my sights set towards December 9, 2011, when he would graduate. The best was yet to come. We went through those three months with no communication but letters. Finally graduation day arrived. It was such a wonderful, memorable occasion. Seeing him for the first time in his service alpha uniform made everything worth it.

He was home for three weeks before he left again, this time to Camp Geiger, North Carolina, to complete infantry training. This eight week training was no easier than boot camp. We were not able to communicate much then either, but thankfully he was able to call on our one year dating anniversary. Though not able to attend his graduation from the School of Infantry, my parents and I made the trip to his new duty station, Camp Lejeune, just a few weeks after he graduated. During this trip, Joel proposed. We were so excited! Now we had our wedding to look forward to. The best was yet to come. I returned to West Virginia to begin planning our wedding, and he went to 29 Palms, California, to go through his predeployment training for his upcoming deployment. He missed my high school graduation, but I knew he was there in spirit. We had originally planned to get married after he returned from Afghanistan but made a spur-of-the-moment decision to wed before he left. Should something happen to him, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to marry. He ended up getting transferred to a different unit and did not deploy, but we still married on September 30, 2012. Our wedding day was perfect. Surely nothing could get better. But still, the best was yet to come. I finished my semester of college before I finally was able to move with him in December of 2012.

He got word of a deployment shortly after and left in early 2013. He was gone 9 months. The deployment was hard. I had to remind myself daily that the best was yet to come. I had lived my life by that saying during our fifteen months of long distance, and I wasn’t going to stop now. The best really was yet to come. I had homecoming to look forward to. I knew it would be the most amazing reunion I’d ever experience. Through the tears, worries, stress, and lack of communication, I just kept looking towards homecoming. Finally my day arrived. It was November 4, 2013. I will never forget that day. Getting my hero back was the best thing that ever happened to me.

This quote inspires me so much because I know that bad times won’t last. There are always better days ahead. I truly believe that having a positive attitude is the most important thing to remember through hard times. Never give up. The best is yet to come.