Essay Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment or event in your life that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood.
Word Limit: 750 My rough draft is at 407.
This is still a rough draft but I'm having a hard time figuring out where to add more to it. Any advice would be great.
It had been a few been weeks since I had seen her. My mother talked to her on the phone only a few days ago. I could sense something was different, but I didn't want to be another bother to my mother.
We decided to walk to the salon for a haircut to take our minds off of things. Only a few blocks away from my home, the police car drove past us, turning down our street. I knew exactly where it was heading and the exact reason for it. My grandmother was dead. She reached the point where life wasn't worth living and took herself out of the picture.
A month before I started high school the saddest thing in my life happened. Barely fourteen, I had discovered the tragedies that come with depression. I knew my grandmother was never the happiest person, but I had always assumed it was because of her divorce. Figured she just never got over it. Within a short time, I found out just how sad she was and how much she fought to hide it from me. This event in my life is not something I bring up lightly, but it was a pivotal moment in my transition to adulthood.
To describe a child, the word I would use is innocence. Most children know nothing about the scary parts of life. All they are told is to brush their teeth and pick up their toys. Adults hide the scary stuff because they're supposed to protect a child's innocence. Now that I had seen the scary stuff, I was no longer innocent. I began to have feelings toward my grandma I had not had before. I was angry at her for leaving but it felt wrong to have those feelings. In everyone's eyes, I was a young girl overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Once those feelings are associated with a person, they're no longer a child.
To this day, I still angry at her. It's been almost four years and I still don't understand why. Perhaps I'll never understand why but what I do understand is how it shaped who I am today. I take risks. Unlike my Nana, who would've been content hiding in the house all day, I don't let fear stop me from doing something. I tell myself I don't want to end up like her. I learned quickly that a person is not always what they seem.
Hello,
I have a few suggestions
1) a lot of children see really bad things, so I would take out the part that says they don't. Unfortunately, that is just not how life is.
2) do not end on a negative note. You are angry with your grandmother and that is fine, but end on a note saying how this taught you to deal with the problems of life and that you see how depression and suicide affect others so strongly.
Lastly, your harshness towards depression shows that you do not understand it and have not researched it. I would not let on that you do not know what it is. It is classified as a disease, and if this is an essay for a college entrance acceptance, the people reading will most likely be somewhat knowledgeable about the disease. Also, negativity like that does not look good in this type of essay.
If you are still emotionally hurt, you may not be ready to write about this. I know I had to change my personal statement because I was trying to write about something I was not ready to write about. Just some food for thought.
Hope this helped.
