Undergraduate / 'apples and apple seed' common app essay: influencial person [4]

Indicate a person who had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Apples and apple seed

Some people were born with a basket of fresh apples next to them, all ready to be eaten, while some people were only born with an apple seed. I am the one with the seed. My parents were divorced when I was four and I have been living with my mother since then. When I was a child, I used to be jealous of other children who had both of their parents attended family bonding sessions when I only had one. I used to be looking at all the things that I do not have instead of what I have. Until, someone changed the way I look at my life. She is no other than my mother. My mother is my inspiration, my motivation and my all, for she had made me who I am today.

My mother used to tell me stories about her before I sleep. She grew up in divorced family and was living with my alcoholic addict grandmother back then. Worst of all she had lived in the most difficult time in Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution period. Even though life was not easy for her, she did not accept her fate with resignation. Despite the tough environment she was in, my mother managed to study in one of the top high-school in my hometown, attained a degree and found a respectable job in a local bank. I was inspired to become a strong and independent woman like my mother.

My mother also taught me principles in life trough her own action. She had a little notebook to keep track of all the people who had helped her in one way or another and she will always try to repay them whenever she could. These little things that she does make me realize the importance of thankfulness.

Then it was the life changing moment for the both of us. My mother always wanted to give me the best that she can afford because she wanted to give me what she did not had when she was young. She did not like the education system in China which was only focused on academic achievements; she liked the western system of well-rounded development. She then decided to let me study aboard in Singapore. In order to do this, my mother had given up her respectable job which she had work very hard to achieve and moved together with me to Singapore. We started with nothing in an absolutely new environment. Due to the policies in Singapore my mother was unable to continue with her job in banking. Thus to support me in my studies, my mother had let down her glory days and went back to ground zero. She had many jobs: hair stylist, house maid and hotel housekeeping servant. My heart fills with grief every time I see her exhausted at the end of the day. It takes great courage and determination to sacrifice so much. There is no other way that I can repay her for what she had done for me other than to continue to work hard so that I can give her a comfortable life in the future. She is my motivation for whatever obstacles that I face.

While other people may have a basket of apples which may eventually deplete, I have now realized that I have not only an apple seed but an apple tree. My mother had nurtured her seed with all her heart and soul to an apple tree that was me. Now it is my turn to foster my seed into a fecund tree and going to college will be my first step.

please help me to see if the essay is okay and help me correct my grammar because i am very weak in that. thank you everyone!