Rennel Rhodes will never forget the moment. He was sitting in his car in a parking lot in Turlock with his  daughter, Amara, who was 14 years old at the time and a freshman at Golden Valley High School. A few hours earlier, Rennel had told his daughter that her mom, Sara, had passed away. Amara didn’t cry when she heard the news, but Rennel could see the water forming around her eyes.

 

Amara asked her dad if they could go for a drive, just the two of them. They drove for three hours, going from town to town around the Central Valley, before parking in front of Texas Roadhouse in Turlock, just off Highway 99. For 15 minutes they sat in dead silence, the only car in the parking lot. Amara had her headphones on and Rennel was scrolling through his phone, keeping his mind busy. “She takes her earbuds out,” said Rennel, who works as an intervention center coordinator at Merced High School. “She looks at me, she goes, ‘All right, dad.’ And I'm like, ‘What's up?’ She goes, ‘All right, our new life starts today. Let's go. Let's figure it out.’ And I looked at her, and of course, I started crying, and I'm like, ‘Really?’ She goes, ‘Let's go, dad, it's you and me. Our new adventure, our new life starts today.’”

 

Rennel will tell you that moment capsulizes who his daughter is as a person. Mature beyond her age, with the ability to internalize things many adults would struggle with. “She said she has to keep living and she doesn’t want to make any excuses,” Rennel said. “She could have every excuse in the book. I think she missed one travel (volleyball) tournament and then she’s like, ‘Dad, I need to get back on the court. I need to keep my mind busy. I’ve got to go back to practice.’”

 

Fast forward three years, and Amara, 17, now heads into the final week of the regular season as a senior captain of the Atwater High girls volleyball team. Amara transferred to Atwater High her sophomore year to get a fresh start after her mom died. It allowed her to be around many of her close friends and she’s thrived. “Coming to Atwater was the best thing ever for me,” Amara said. “I was greeted by so many amazing people, like the seniors on the volleyball team, they made me feel so welcomed. It was honestly amazing.” 

 

She’s heavily involved in school with leadership and the Black Student Union. Her focus now is to do everything she can to help the Falcons make the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs for the third consecutive year. “I've made the playoffs every year since my freshman year,” Amara said. “Before I came to Atwater my sophomore year, they hadn’t been to the playoffs for a long time. Now we expect it and I keep saying, ‘We’re playing past league.’ I just want to keep playing with these amazing girls.” The Falcons program celebrated Amara surpassing 1,500 career assists last week as she continues to lead a team littered with young players. Amara thinks of her teammates as sisters. “SImply put, Amara is the glue that holds this team together,” said Atwater coach Lauren Leonardo.  “She comes in every game with an intensity that says, "I am here to win," and I think that impacts our entire team.  She sets the pace, encourages her teammates, and holds herself accountable. Not only does our varsity team look up to her, but so do our lower level teams.”

 

When it comes to watching her daughter play, Rennel can’t help but be a proud dad. “I get chills thinking about it right now, looking at her as a captain the other night,” Rennel said. “I'm looking at her play, and there are two seniors, two freshmen and two sophomores. She’s out there encouraging them. I look at the way she leads off the court, and she's just smiling, she just has this presence about her. Part of it is her mother. She has some of her mother's characteristics, and I tell her that. I'm just a beaming father. It's not even about sports. It's just about her as a human being.”

 

Atwater volleyball coach Lauren Leonardo marvels at how Amara has handled everything thrown her way at such a young age. “Amara is admirable, determined, and has shown such perseverance,” Leonardo said. “Having an experience that Amara has had, at such a pivotal time in her life, and being able to come out of that experience with continued determination to chase her dreams, shows what an amazing young woman she is and I think really shows the amount of support she has had.”

 

Amara says she loves when people tell her she reminds them of her mother. “They used to call her Sara Smile,” Amara said. “Her smile would always just light up any room she walked in, like she was so inspiring, she would always work hard, like she was obviously an amazing human being and people tell me now that it’s like she shines through me.”

 

Alcoholism played a big role in the death of Amara’s mother. She ultimately died of liver failure. Both Rennel and Amara say when Sara finally wanted help it was too late. When Amara was in fifth grade, Sara spent 10 days in the hospital. Rennel said he did his best to protect Amara so she didn’t know everything that was going on back then. 

 

When Sara got sick again, toward the end, Amara didn’t want to hide from it. “She said, ‘Dad, I need to see this,” Rennel said. “So towards the end, she saw a lot. She would say she's still my mom, and I need to see what I don't want to be like, and what I don't want to do. So I was like, ‘Okay, if you have questions, let's talk about it.’ And we did sometimes, we’re an open book, that's kind of how we are, I guess, There's nothing to hide. There's nothing we can do about it, but just be honest and try to learn whatever lessons we're supposed to learn from it.”

 

Amara says the down time is the toughest. That’s why she loves to stay busy and extending the volleyball season would be a blessing. She loves to workout and also has club volleyball right around the corner. College volleyball programs have also shown interest in her. There will be some tough times ahead like prom and graduation, where she’ll wish her mom was there. She says she’s learned what to do during those tough times.”I've learned to just sit in it if it's coming,” Amara said. “Sit in it, process it, cry and move on. It's okay to cry, it's okay to think about her, it's okay to think about the good and the bad, it’s all part of the process.”

 

Amara says it’s tough to look up in the stands during matches and not see her mom sitting there, but it’s comforting to see her dad at every match. “He’s my ride or die,” Amara said. “My dad never misses a game. I'm thankful that he can be there regardless, like any circumstance. He'll take work off, he'll do whatever he can, just  watch me play. To see him so present in my life, it's honestly amazing.”

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.