Scholarship / [FUV] Tell us about one time you cried the loudest and one time you laughed the hardest. [5]

I am looking for feedback in structure, grammar and vocabulary.
Tips on how to improve would be great too.

I am really appreciate if you could please answer these questions:
After reading the essay, do you know more about the author and feel closer to him or her?
Do the idea in the essay connect in a way that is logical, but not too obvious (boring)?
Can you name at least 4 to 5 of the author's core values?
Thank you.

Here is my essay:

Every ending is a new beginning

I was at a funeral. Everyone's heads were down. Nobody spoke a word, I wondered myself: "What is happening?", "Whose funeral is it ?", "Why am I here", etc. Moving forward, I saw a white-faced women lying in coffin. That was my mom. My heart stopped beating in one second. I could not do anything but standing there, trying to wake her up and sobbing unconsciously. Why did my mom die ? Was it because of my fault when I wished her to be death yesterday? That time I cried the loudest"

No matter how many times I tried to call her, all I could hear was the dead silence, not my mother's soft voice. At this point of my life, I feel like a speck of dust within the galaxy, watching the night sky with a broken heart and a messy mind.

Time is valuable because it always moves forward. A white ceiling, the sunrise replaced the moon, I was on my bed with a wet pillow, a tear rolled down my face. "That was a dream, wasn't it?". I got out of my bed as quick as possible, ran around the house and looked for my mom. There she was, my mother, standing there and cooking as usual. Immediately, I ran to her and tried to hug her tightly by my arm and said sorry. Surprised as she was, my mother did not say anything but smiling with me gently, which is the warmest thing in the world that I have ever seen. Realising that was just a horrible dream, I laughed the hardest.

After that nightmare, the idea that mom will leave me still bothered me, turning my mind into a complete chaotic mess. 2:00 am, I could not sleep, it was raining heavily outside. The rain crashed against the windows, creating crackling sounds that broke the silence of night. There was a street light shining into my bedroom that brighten up my classic black round wall clock. Tick tock, tick tock. The red second hand of the clock moved quickly from 0 to 12, 60 seconds passed. But there was no number 0 on the clock's face, then the red second hand must move from 12 to 12. Since the clock is a circle, after a long run of 60 seconds, the red second hand got back to its starting point. Is that how time work?

Every ending is a new beginning.

I got out of bed, turned on the light, opened my diary, ended my real nightmare by starting to write down my thoughts of that moment. I saw myself, clearlier than ever, a 14-year-old girl who was dealing with the puberty and being afraid of losing so much that forget about appreciating the moments. I took my mom love for granted and I almost lost it. I did not know how important she is to me until I was on the verge of losing her leading me to be so vulnerable and regretful.

Time is valuable because it always moves forward. So do I.
I ended my comfort zone, started my own business at grade 8 and stopped it to focus on studying. I ended my puberty, started to discover the world by taking part in social activities, meeting new people with different backgrounds and learning to embrace their differences. I ended the deepest fear of mine: "fear of losing", started living fully at the moment in order to be brave enough to get over the past and be ready for the future. Life is too short to be afraid of but it is long enough to live the one that I want.

Scholarship / Tell us about the place – or places – you call home. Family - the most important thing. [2]

Tell us about the place you call home

I am eager for all feedback.
Thank you.

What is the most important thing in life ?

For me, that is my family, just one word but contains a whole world. Family can be simply called as the smallest community in human society including the same bloodline members. But in my opinion, family is a privilege, a gift that I am such a lucky girl to have.

I was born in a big, nuclear family that has five daughters with loving parents. In Asian's opinion, it is not accepted, but my parents always love us as their lovely little princesses.

From the experience in life, my parents have known exactly that knowledge is power, which can be considered as the strongest weapon to protect their daughters from the world full of traps outside when they could not interfere to protect us. Therefore, my mom and dad created their own business- a grocery store in order to provide us with a sufficient financial foundation for studying.

I used to think that my parents are superheroes because they never sleep, whenever I saw them, no matter it was soon or late, they all worked tirelessly. My sister told me that because these superheroes had to save the world for us, we must take care of ourselves instead of depending on them. Therefore, we did, we were completely independent on almost all aspects of our lives, from the smallest tasks like self-feeding, self-discipline in studying to some bigger ones such as making a decision. Commonly, we share our problems with each other so that we could handle them together unless there was an emergency situation needed helps from my parents. Thanks to that, I have learnt to be independent in my own life as well as responsible for it. Though sometimes I felt pity for being lacked care of parents, I am grateful for being a daughter of them because they brought up a stronger version of mine.

My sisters told me that there was a time when my parents had nothing to be proud of except for my sisters' rewards from school which are still being kept as a treasure in my parents' room. Whenever I come there, I always remind myself of the truth value of knowledge: "Be a MASTER of myself", which urges me to learn with a progressive spirit and always be in a ready position for innovation. Thank to this belief, I am now having my part-time job as a tutor, selling my time with a higher price, the price of knowledge.

If my life is a tree, my family will definitely is a firm root providing me the power to stand still before winds and storms. I used to think that my family can be be happy together forever but the bad news is time always moves forward, my sisters moved out one by one, my parents and I had to gradually cope with the empty spaces in our house. I used to hate time so much because it steals my dear sisters and my childhood. Nevertheless, the good new is time always moves forward, time does not steal my sisters, it brings them to the next chapter of their life and so do mine.

Those are lessons that I learn from my family besides school.
I believe that learning is an unstoppable process when human learn about not only the world but also themselves. Apparently, people are also a part of the animal, we are arranged as the highest one since we can control yourself from our deepest desire, and learning is the requirement to achieve control. Therefore, I am now 18 years old, having nothing but my heart, my soul and my youth to learn about the world as well as myself.