Here is the prompt:
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
And here is my essay. Please read, edit, make suggestions, or just comment. Thanks!
"What's wrong with that woman's legs?"
I turned around slowly, looking down our aisle in the produce section. I found it in a junior high kid - maybe only a year or two older than me - who was blatantly staring at my mom's legs.
I looked straight into his eyes and shot back, "No, what's wrong with your face?"
My mom instantly flashed me her signature I'll-deal-with-you-later glare as she turned to apologize to the kid. She took my arm and quickly led me out of the store.
I glanced back to happily see the kid still standing there in mild shock.
"You can't just say things like that, you know."
"Umma, he was being rude. You hate rude people."
She looked down with a half-smile, her hands awkwardly placed on her legs.
When she was young, my mom had been paralyzed by polio from the waist down, leaving her with a scarred heart and a pair of crutches for the rest of her life. I felt her pain at times when she didn't even know she was hurting. This was one of those times.
"I hate it when kids do that. There's nothing wrong with you."
My mom smiled. "You know, for all your merits, you don't have much jeong."
I beamed happily - my mom rarely dished out compliments as such. I backtracked. Wait, I didn't have what?
"What's jeong?" I asked.
My mom's brows furrowed, as they often do when she's trying to put her thoughts to speech. After a short pause, she responded.
"It's like an emotion. It's a bond felt between two beings - like when you love someone, or care for someone, there is jeong between the two of you. The first time you experience jeong is as a newborn, when your mother raises you to her bosom and you realize, even as a baby, that there is something warm and good about the human touch."
I gave her an incredulous look. "Are you saying I don't love you?" I chuckled - it was a ridiculous notion.
She wasn't laughing. I stopped, realizing that she was being serious.
"So when you feel jeong -"
My mom shook her head. "No, you don't feel it. It comes over you at times when you truly experience it. It's something that exists outside of the mind and heart - between you and the rest of the world. It's a state of understanding other people's feelings."
Apparently I hadn't gotten the memo. My mom was the new Confucius.
"How do I not have jeong? I understand, I feel. I empathize."
"Jeong isn't just about empathy. It's about sensing that your individuality is only a part of a sum, that we all have a commitment to each other - it's sacrificing your person for the cause of a whole."
I could feel my own brows furrow as I tried to wrap my head around the concept.
My mom continued. "You should realize that even strangers share some jeong between them. It's small, but it's there. There was jeong between you and that kid back there. If you had realized that, maybe you wouldn't have been so snide."
I raised an eyebrow. "Umma, are you being serious? If someone talks to you like that, they can't expect to just walk away."
She gave me a knowing smile. We both laughed.
Life with a handicapped mother has always seemed like this - a string of lessons. Rare lessons, like this one, would lodge themselves like bubblegum pop in the inner confines of my subconscious. I realized that my mother had in fact been teaching me how to harbor jeong all throughout my life - in the smaller things in life, like in a smile or a simple hand gesture. To me, jeong was the art of putting myself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in it. It was the realization that all of human experience is connected.
I know that the ending is EXTREMELY abrupt, but I just really wanted to churn out the meat of the essay - if you have any suggestions on how to cleanly end the piece, I'd be extremely grateful. Thanks in advance!
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
And here is my essay. Please read, edit, make suggestions, or just comment. Thanks!
"What's wrong with that woman's legs?"
I turned around slowly, looking down our aisle in the produce section. I found it in a junior high kid - maybe only a year or two older than me - who was blatantly staring at my mom's legs.
I looked straight into his eyes and shot back, "No, what's wrong with your face?"
My mom instantly flashed me her signature I'll-deal-with-you-later glare as she turned to apologize to the kid. She took my arm and quickly led me out of the store.
I glanced back to happily see the kid still standing there in mild shock.
"You can't just say things like that, you know."
"Umma, he was being rude. You hate rude people."
She looked down with a half-smile, her hands awkwardly placed on her legs.
When she was young, my mom had been paralyzed by polio from the waist down, leaving her with a scarred heart and a pair of crutches for the rest of her life. I felt her pain at times when she didn't even know she was hurting. This was one of those times.
"I hate it when kids do that. There's nothing wrong with you."
My mom smiled. "You know, for all your merits, you don't have much jeong."
I beamed happily - my mom rarely dished out compliments as such. I backtracked. Wait, I didn't have what?
"What's jeong?" I asked.
My mom's brows furrowed, as they often do when she's trying to put her thoughts to speech. After a short pause, she responded.
"It's like an emotion. It's a bond felt between two beings - like when you love someone, or care for someone, there is jeong between the two of you. The first time you experience jeong is as a newborn, when your mother raises you to her bosom and you realize, even as a baby, that there is something warm and good about the human touch."
I gave her an incredulous look. "Are you saying I don't love you?" I chuckled - it was a ridiculous notion.
She wasn't laughing. I stopped, realizing that she was being serious.
"So when you feel jeong -"
My mom shook her head. "No, you don't feel it. It comes over you at times when you truly experience it. It's something that exists outside of the mind and heart - between you and the rest of the world. It's a state of understanding other people's feelings."
Apparently I hadn't gotten the memo. My mom was the new Confucius.
"How do I not have jeong? I understand, I feel. I empathize."
"Jeong isn't just about empathy. It's about sensing that your individuality is only a part of a sum, that we all have a commitment to each other - it's sacrificing your person for the cause of a whole."
I could feel my own brows furrow as I tried to wrap my head around the concept.
My mom continued. "You should realize that even strangers share some jeong between them. It's small, but it's there. There was jeong between you and that kid back there. If you had realized that, maybe you wouldn't have been so snide."
I raised an eyebrow. "Umma, are you being serious? If someone talks to you like that, they can't expect to just walk away."
She gave me a knowing smile. We both laughed.
Life with a handicapped mother has always seemed like this - a string of lessons. Rare lessons, like this one, would lodge themselves like bubblegum pop in the inner confines of my subconscious. I realized that my mother had in fact been teaching me how to harbor jeong all throughout my life - in the smaller things in life, like in a smile or a simple hand gesture. To me, jeong was the art of putting myself in another's shoes, and walking some miles in it. It was the realization that all of human experience is connected.
I know that the ending is EXTREMELY abrupt, but I just really wanted to churn out the meat of the essay - if you have any suggestions on how to cleanly end the piece, I'd be extremely grateful. Thanks in advance!