LILBURN, Ga. — Lauren Kobe had never had a seizure - and never shown any warning signs - until the day she was set to graduate high school.
But this past Thursday, after Parkview High School graduation practice that morning, she fell on the floor in a moment she today doesn't remember.
"My dad told me I went into the front room, and he heard a thud," Kobe told 11Alive's Matt Pearl. "He found me on the floor and saw me, seizing. I woke up in the ambulance going to the hospital."
She would stay there overnight, missing her chance to walk the stage with her 648 fellow seniors. It was a devastating shock.
The following day, she received a different kind of surprise.
"My mom told me when we got back from the hospital to just go into my room and take a nap," Kobe recalled with a laugh. Two hours later, she came down to her parents' yard and saw classmates, teachers, and administrators in cap and gown, ready to perform a second graduation ceremony.
"I was just speechless," she said. "The fact that it came together so quickly, and that people basically dropped everything to come and help, it was so unexpected. My friends made a program for it and wrote a speech in 30 minutes. We even had a guest speaker."
Kobe, who had been scheduled to speak at graduation, got to give her speech during the ceremony. Then she crossed a makeshift stage, turned her tassel, and threw her cap in the air with her classmates.
"I am feeling overwhelmed," she says now, looking back on the gesture, "in the best possible way."
Next year Kobe will take a mission-based gap year, visiting Swaziland, Thailand, and Nicaragua through a group called the World Race Gap Year, part of Adventures in Missions.
And her emotions today?
"I just feel so loved."
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Matt Pearl’s Untold Atlanta series tells the stories we don’t hear often enough: the stories of our communities and the people who make them special. If you know of a great untold story to share, follow Matt on Facebook or e-mail him at mpearl@11alive.com.