This is my essay for the Apply Texas Topic A:
What was the environment in which you were raised? Describe your family, home, neighborhood, or community, and explain how it has shaped you as a person.
Is it okay?
The fluorescents buzzed bright in the hospital waiting room. I did not know how to stop crying as I struggled to pay attention to the words our pastor was saying while putting on latex gloves and a mask in order to enter my father's room. I pushed down the tears so that my dad would not see me cry as I walked through the small door into his sterile ICU room. My mother walked over and ushered me to the bed where my dad held out his hand; jaundiced and cold, it seemed like a foreign object as I held it. My eyes couldn't lift higher than his hand out of fear for what I'd see because the sick yellow man on the bed was too much for my ten year old self to comprehend. Focusing on the "I love you" that came from his mouth occupied the brain function that inhibited me from saying it back; seeing him destroyed by cancer took away my words with his diagnosis. I regret not telling my dad that I loved him on his deathbed.
It was December and I did not know that my dad wouldn't be home for Christmas. He was supposed to be in remission: already two years cancer free from a previous treatment. Most of my memories from that time were MD Anderson's waiting room and living at my great uncle's house. Nevertheless, life will happen for better or worse. The cancer had returned, but this time it was terminal. Gone were the days of my father making us dinner from recipes passed down from his British heritage: I quickly learned to make my own lunches and dinners when my mom checked herself out from life like a book from a library. Being a single mother did not come easy or quickly for her. However, after giving her a couple years to grieve, her anxiety subsided, motherly instincts kicked in, and she rallied the family to overcome the loss and encouraged communication that had been lost with my dad's passing. Tragedy tore my family apart, then eventually reunited us closer than we had ever been.
My marred circumstances endowed me the unassuming responsibility of my own life at an early age. I reflect daily on how much easier my academics could have been if I did not need a job at 16 to buy gas to get to school, or whether I could have continued to do competitive dance after moving to College Station in order to be closer to my family after turbulent years. However, I am grateful for the unfortunate incident that allowed me to become a self-sufficient, conscientious learner
What was the environment in which you were raised? Describe your family, home, neighborhood, or community, and explain how it has shaped you as a person.
Is it okay?
The fluorescents buzzed bright in the hospital waiting room. I did not know how to stop crying as I struggled to pay attention to the words our pastor was saying while putting on latex gloves and a mask in order to enter my father's room. I pushed down the tears so that my dad would not see me cry as I walked through the small door into his sterile ICU room. My mother walked over and ushered me to the bed where my dad held out his hand; jaundiced and cold, it seemed like a foreign object as I held it. My eyes couldn't lift higher than his hand out of fear for what I'd see because the sick yellow man on the bed was too much for my ten year old self to comprehend. Focusing on the "I love you" that came from his mouth occupied the brain function that inhibited me from saying it back; seeing him destroyed by cancer took away my words with his diagnosis. I regret not telling my dad that I loved him on his deathbed.
It was December and I did not know that my dad wouldn't be home for Christmas. He was supposed to be in remission: already two years cancer free from a previous treatment. Most of my memories from that time were MD Anderson's waiting room and living at my great uncle's house. Nevertheless, life will happen for better or worse. The cancer had returned, but this time it was terminal. Gone were the days of my father making us dinner from recipes passed down from his British heritage: I quickly learned to make my own lunches and dinners when my mom checked herself out from life like a book from a library. Being a single mother did not come easy or quickly for her. However, after giving her a couple years to grieve, her anxiety subsided, motherly instincts kicked in, and she rallied the family to overcome the loss and encouraged communication that had been lost with my dad's passing. Tragedy tore my family apart, then eventually reunited us closer than we had ever been.
My marred circumstances endowed me the unassuming responsibility of my own life at an early age. I reflect daily on how much easier my academics could have been if I did not need a job at 16 to buy gas to get to school, or whether I could have continued to do competitive dance after moving to College Station in order to be closer to my family after turbulent years. However, I am grateful for the unfortunate incident that allowed me to become a self-sufficient, conscientious learner