DaytonDailyNews.com

In the family living room Friday afternoon, Tom Merritt re-read the essay written by his oldest daughter, Sarah, on her 13th birthday. She began by recounting some of the famous things that happened on April 14: The Titanic sank. Abraham Lincoln was shot. Pete Rose was born.

It was a very famous date, and Sarah was, well, not so famous. "I might not be the sixteenth president," she wrote. "I might not be a professional ball player. But I am loved just as much as any famous person ever was. I may not be known nationwide but the people who do know me, most of them love and respect me as if I were famous. I am all that I can be. I do all that I can do. I live life to its fullest."

Merritt wiped the tears from his eyes and said, "Wow."

Sarah died March 21, less than a month shy of her 21st birthday, after a fall from the fifth-floor balcony of her hotel room in Hilton Head, S.C.

It comforts Merritt and his wife, Tammy, that Sarah knew how deeply she was loved. "She shared everything with me," Tammy said. "She was not only my daughter but my friend. We were very, very close. I don't have any regrets. I wouldn't have changed a thing about how I raised her or what I did or didn't say. The last thing I said was that I loved her."

That was Tuesday night, before Sarah took a long stroll on the beach with her fiance, Seth Walton of Vandalia.

Sarah's parents had recently learned that the high school romance between the pair had blossomed again, this time for keeps. "You always were my boyfriend," Sarah told Walton after they got back together. Though they had ventured off on their own — Sarah to college and Seth to service in the Air National Guard — Seth said "in the back of our minds we kind of always knew we would end up together." This time they talked about marriage and got a bull mastiff named Scarlet together.

"Even before Tammy told me, I knew there was something happening with these kids," said Merritt, a Tipp City attorney. "I knew because it was my girl. We're so glad Sarah and Seth found each other again. It comforted us to know that he was there when it happened."

Since the accident the Merritts have welcomed Walton into their home, embraced him as a son. "If you ask me how I'm getting through this, it's because of all the love in this house," Walton said.

The Merritts don't blame Walton or any of the three friends — fellow players from the Ohio University Bobcats soccer team —who traveled with her to Hilton Head. They drove to Athens Wednesday to have lunch with the other girls and to reassure them it wasn't their fault. "They all loved her," Tom said. "If Sarah got something in her head to do it, nobody could stop her."

On that tragic day, she had gotten it into her head that she wanted to climb from her hotel balcony to her boyfriend's. Her friends all urged her not to do it again, and she promised Seth she would stop.

As they were watching television, Sarah kissed him and whispered, "I'll be right back."

Less than a minute later, Seth heard the screams of Sarah's roommate who saw her slip and fall 60 feet to the pavement.

After "the longest elevator ride of my life," Seth shook Sarah, checked her pulse, refusing to give up hope.

"Her eyes were half open and you could tell she wasn't there," said Seth, 22, and a graduate of Vandalia Butler High School.

Seth picked her up and carried her to the back of the ambulance. After trying to revive her for 10 minutes, the paramedics came out of the ambulance and told him Sarah hadn't made it.

In an instant, the close-knit Merritt family had lost a loving daughter. Tipp City had lost its "all-American girl," a young woman known as much for her warmth and creativity as well as her prowess on the soccer field. And Seth Walton had lost the young woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

Despite the pain and the loss Walton wouldn't trade the last seven weeks for anything. "She was something else," he said. "She was a shot of life."

At first, Seth felt a stab of anger along with the terrible grief. Why had she taken such an unnecessary risk?

Now her family can't help feeling that her actions were caused by her fun-loving nature, all the things that made her Sarah.

"It was an accident that came about because of her youthfulness and fearlessness and adventurousness, all the things we loved about her, all the things that made her who she was," Tom Merritt said. "Those things also caused her to do something that turned out to be tragic."

Toxicology results won't be released for another month, but Seth said Sarah wasn't intoxicated. He resents inferences the tragedy resulted from some drunken spring break revelry. "It wasn't like that at all," he said. "These were Division 1 athletes and good students. She was doing this to prove to herself that she could."

Added Tom: "She didn't get to where she was in 20 short years without the qualities of confidence, fearlessness and risk-taking. She felt like she was invincible. To be honest I kind of thought she was invincible, too."

Sarah's younger sisters — 16-year-old twins Emily and Hannah — share the same spunk. Both also plan to play college soccer. "If you think of the perfect big sister, she was 10 times of that," Emily said. "She was my role model and she still is. She told me her secrets about school and boys and I told her mine. She gave me advice, which I didn't follow, but it was good advice."

The lively household of three girls has been diminished by one. How are Sarah's parents coping with such an unfathomable loss? Tom answers with three words: "Faith, family, friends."

From the moment they got the call from an employee at the Comfort Inn, friends and family mobilized to help them. Tom's sister- and-brother-in-law, Jeannette and John McGraw of Merritt Island, Fla., rushed to join them in South Carolina. So did Seth's parents, Gil and Laura Walton of Vandalia.

Even while in South Carolina, on the painful task of bringing Sarah home, the family felt the embrace of the Tipp City community. They found comfort in the condolence board at DaytonDailyNews.com, now climbing to 27 pages. More than her athletic skills — she's the only female All-American in Tipp history — guest book signers mention the way her smile "would light up a room" and the way she "lived life to the fullest." More than her popularity as senior homecoming queen, people wrote about her friendliness and inclusiveness, even with students she didn't know very well.

"We always knew she was special, but it was good for us to hear others who felt the same way," Tom said. "It was comforting," Tammy said. She also has received tremendous support from co-workers at Procter & Gamble's IAMS division on Poe Avenue, where she has worked in marketing for 12 years.

It is small wonder that Sarah wanted to return to her hometown to teach English and coach soccer at Tippecanoe High School. "She adored her teachers at Tipp and she never wanted to be anything other than a teacher and to come back here and coach," Tom said.

As the family celebrates Sarah's life at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday with a funeral at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, they also mourn the loss of all that potential. "I think of the children she could have taught, the babies she could have had," Tammy said. "She had so much more she could have done."

During his last private moments with Sarah at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Tom Merritt told his daughter, "I know you know your daddy loves you. But as much as you think your daddy loves you that doesn't even approach how much daddy really loves you."

It turns out Sarah was right with that essay she penned on her 13th birthday.

She was loved just as much as any famous person ever was.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.