Sophie changed the way I think about people, all because she said hi to me. She showed me that just because a person might look or act different, you shouldn’t judge them without getting to know them. The minute she said hi to me, I knew that we would become great friends.

Sophie is blind and went to my elementary school. We met on the bus. The bus driver said she could sit next to me. I was nervous because she could not do lots of things I could. She could not see, she had trouble talking sometimes, and she did not know what anything looked like. I didn’t know how to talk to her.

She turned to face me and said, “Hi.”

I knew right then that we would become good friends. “What is your name?” she asked.

“G-G-Gabrielle,” I stuttered.

“What do you look like?” she asked. I finally found the words and started to describe myself the best I could so she could picture me.

She told me what her family was like and her hobbies. She was in choir and played the piano. Since she was blind, she read Braille which is a system of writing using little dots so fingers can trace the letters in order to read it. She had been to many Braille competitions and had begun competing at age eight.

It took me a while to get used to the fact that Sophie was going to sit next to me on the bus for the year. Whenever we sat together, we would talk about school and homework, and we even played games. It’s amazing to remember that the first time I saw her, I was so nervous, and now we have become great friends.

When I first saw her, I judged her too quickly. She is smart and talented. She can do anything I can do, even though she is blind. We will always be friends, since the first day I saw her on the bus when she said hi to me.