Undergraduate / "dad's impairment" - (experience, achievement, risk) College Essay [3]

Hello everybody. I'm writing a college essay. Below is the topic and the essay. Please help me with this essay's critique. Any thought from y'all is well appreciated! Thanks for taking your time reading and commenting on this!!!

- Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you (500 words limit)

I often felt conflicted when I was in third grade, about my status and my father. My friends derided me for one thing, a thing that I was neither able to decide, nor could I have changed: my dad's defective hands. The shame of having a handicapped father turned me from an active, respectable kid into deep depression. I eluded, avoided talking to people. Dad tried to cheer me up with glossy toys that a child could never prefer more. But no matter what he tried, it was my sulky, accusatorial look that he found. All that was flooded in my naïve, juvenile little mind was the cruel sarcasm: "Your daddy is handicapped because he is a bad person, and so are you."

Once being asked to write a composition about father, I totally made up and vividly illustrated a strange man rather than my real dad. That imaginary "dad" was a happy healthy man with sturdy hands, not the one with his disability carrying on as a result of bravery. The essay earned an excellent grade. I cherished it the most, together with my dream of having an 'unbroken' dad. One day, I caught father in my room, with his trembling crippled hands on my extolling paper. I had thought he would be proud of his son's excellence, but he was just standing there in dead silence. It left me with confusing thoughts.

That night I could not sleep. I could not help thinking about dad's reaction. In my streams of thoughts, I heard the familiar footsteps. Nevertheless, the move was recognizable, bigger and bigger, outweighing the sounds of the drizzling-rain falls. Quickly, I closed my eyes, pretended as if I had been sleeping, sound and deep.

As usual, dad tiptoed to my bed, fitted my blanket, and closed the windows. It was always difficult for dad to stretch out his no-brawn arms. I could not hold back the tears as I followed his gesture. I kept the whimper in my throat, tried not to cry out loud, but apparently he had already known. Perhaps, he knew because we had that special father-child's sensitive bonds. No more silence, he came closer, not to adjust the blanket, but to wipe my falling tears. He began to speak, softly and cozily: "You cry because you now realize I am not a bad person, don't you son?" I merely nodded.

That night, dad told me how his hands were once strong and solid, but got burned and broken when he threw himself in a horrible conflagration to save his peers. In his arm, I felt more peaceful than ever. I fell asleep without even realizing.

It was dad's impairment that taught me an unforgettable lesson that I need to perceive things not by their appearance but by the inside, to feel that internal but eternal beauty and goodness. Sometimes it's just better to let your pure heart decide your judgment, not your physical eyes.