Undergraduate /
Common application essay - When that Eisenbahn hit me [3]
background, identity essay
Hello,
I just wrote an essay for the Common Application on the topic:
"Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story." Could you give me some feedback? I suppose I should develop my ideas a little more - what do you think?
It was summer after ninth grade. Sweating, I run the stairs up, ignoring my cat's protests for a stroke. My back bending with the weight of the bags I carry, I open the door wide and, after a deep breath, scream for my mother, announcing that I'd collected the donations for Lavras that year. This was when that Eisenbahn hit me.
Instead of my mother's enthusiastic medium-pitched timbre, a mutter reaches my ears, and, as I carefully step into my house, a nauseant and wispy smell initially stuns me. Looking ahead after dominating my stomach, I see my mother lying on the wet floor, feebly trying to hide from my sight; besides her, the source of the stink: four empty bottles of beer. Numb, I watch her giving confusing excuses. Only after minutes of hesitation, I lean over her, feeling the alcoholic sweat dripping on my shirt, as we make our way to her bedroom. In spite of her useless objections, I place my mother's frail body on the bed.
Though rare at first, the scenes of this dreadful woman became more and more present in my life. Soon, I had to replace my mother in my house, cooking and cleaning for my brother and father after going to school, only to hide in other worlds at night: Philip K. Dick and Asimov would accompany me to planets far away from my reality, making me forget the body which laid, semiconscious, on the bed. I was sure the world was fulfilled with worst miseries, but I couldn't avoid feeling helpless as the image of that decrepit woman washed away the old pictures of my mother, the teacher who would spend her nights reading Lord of the Rings for me and my brother before we slept.
After that endless summer and the subsequent month, I was determined to forget what happened at home. As result, to forget what awaited me after class, I started consuming my time with other students. Tutoring was, in that time, my escape route, through which I shared what really mattered to me: science, the lens of the past and the future. And by the end of the year, I also took part in ACDEM, a project for helping children physical and mental problems. When I first went there, seeing those kids determinated to fight their diseases, I couldn't help, but to think about my mother. She, like those people, had health problems - but, unlike them, she was alone. It was easy for me to blame her for the alcoholism, but did I ever try to help her overcome it?
I was able to captivate my friends with science and make them laugh in difficult time, but I hadn't use my jokes or smile with the one who raised me and, now, so badly needed my help. The next day, after my German class, I bought my mother's favorite chocolate and placed it next to her pillow, with a small letter, despite the terrible memories entering her room always brought back. The next day, we surrendered.
Nowadays, though still fighting alcoholism, my mother has my help, as I accompany her during her theraphy and, in spite of not being a psicologist, try to make her days happier. However painful her addition has been to both of us, it also revealed my passion for science and teaching; without it, I wouldn't be myself.