I would really appreciate any help/advice for shortening my essay!
Untitled:
In some boxes packed away in the basement sit my nine-year-old crayon drawings of my family, the slightly-better-than-stick lines of my mother and father and me clasping hands and smiling. Beside them lay poems and sketches of my loving family, and especially Baba...To me, he was perfect. Growing up, he was the perfect image I felt every father should be, and I believed I lived in a perfect world, with an ideal Mama and Baba, with an ideal family, with an ideal life. I viewed the world selfishly, seeing the world only the way I wanted to see it, and clutched onto that perfect world most desperately. Yet like all things, it crumbled away. In one cold October, Baba felt a lump behind his right ear. The doctors biopsied, and sure enough, it turned to be cancer.
Time passed and my father started chemo. Baba got thinner and thinner, strange machines and IV drips suddenly appeared in our house, and he could no longer walk without help. My family, although wanting to do its best to help, began falling apart as tensions rose between my grandmothers, my mom, and my dad. Arguments were frequent, but the silence was constant.
Though I was perceptive enough to recognize that my family was in pain, I made the mistake of believe I understood their pain. I resolved to help out as best I could, refrained from sharing my own fears and worries, yet encouraged them to express their own. But even caring and loving acts, if done long enough, can turn into monotonous and annoying chores.
My father's suffering, my family's arguments, and even my own fears, soon lost their novelty. On the outside, I would still help out my dad by doing things around the house: washing dishes, occasionally cooking, finding him his supplies. I would try to ease the strain between my grandmothers and my parents. But inside, I felt nothing...or at least, I ignored what I felt. Unable to handle my fears of loss and the unknown, I turned to resentment. Though never voiced aloud, I often thought, "Why did this have to happen to me? Why can't I just live a normal life, with normal parents?" As the chemo and therapy continued and my perfect world decaying before my eyes, I developed an indifference to my family that was insensitive, disrespectful, and at the very least, bitter.
One Saturday afternoon I was preparing for a piano recital that evening, my dad slept on the couch in the family room. He had fallen asleep hours before, as he had done for several weeks now. But when he woke up, something was wrong... He was not lucid, talked with a lisp, and had the wide-eyed look of a lost child. As I stared at him lying there, I felt the final shards of my perfect world shatter to dust. In front of me, my Baba-the very same person who was once my pillar of strength-now barely remembered who I was, much less my name. And I saw, for the first time in my life, his tears.
The hour drive to the hospital was a blur, as was the rush into the emergency room. I recall my father's moans, my mother's panic, and myself staring at the closed double doors of the emergency room as I waited for the diagnosis. When my mom finally pulled me into the room, my father lay unconscious on the bleached hospital bed, strapped up to a heart monitor and IV drips as the doctor gently explained that Baba's delusions were caused by a severe dehydration of the cells in his brain, an issue that, though serious, was easily fixable. My mother was pulled aside to sign some forms as I mechanically walked around the room, observing the patients on beds and in wheelchairs, the whiteness of the room suffocating. A boy two curtains over looked no older than ten, yet a thick white gauze wrapped his head as he quietly slept. On the opposite wall, a bald middle-aged woman tucked under white sheets murmured to her doctor, only her hands visible as they weakly grasped the cold metal bars beside her. I turned back to my father, with his gaunt face turned sideways, nearly translucent in the harsh lighting. A fear boiled up inside me and I ran out, desperate to escape.
I frantically darted across the hospital lobby until I found an empty seat. As I moved my hand to brush the hair from my eyes, I felt wetness. I was crying. I was crying so silently that I almost wasn't crying at all.
Until that afternoon, I had been engraving my childhood in my memory like picture snapshots of a perfectly normal childhood. But that day, those few hours, will never fade into the blurriness of wistful remembrance. I sat there, motionless, and begged: Why? What wrong did that boy do to end there? What horror did that woman commit to suffer that? And Baba? My own father? They struggle to live, while I selfishly take life for granted...
I was humbled, for I had lost before but never suffered the agony that came with it. I had suffered before, but never summoned the will to fight to live, and I was pained, for I could not truly share my father's suffering. I received that pain, finding that I had an unlimited capacity to not only feel, but act for, if not with, my father, if I allowed myself. That day I found something in me, something that had always been there, but something I had never realized was there before. That day I learned that although my perfect world no longer existed, I still had a world to work my hardest in to make the best of what I have, and beyond it. I could still live and laugh and love in this new world, adapting to the ups and downs and becoming stronger from each. Most of all, my mother was still my Mama, my father was still my Baba, and we were still together. That day I finally let go of the scraps of childhood I had desperately clung to; that day I was finally ready to embrace the future. And as I walked out of those double doors into the hospital lobby, I felt much older...but more alive than I ever had before.
As i read your essay, I totally got engrossed into it. Very touching!! Beautiful peace!! I might have to read couple of times before I can go in finding faults mode!! Sorry, no corrections this time.
Shortened your 2nd, 3rd and 4th Paragraph:
Time passed and my father started chemo. Baba got thinner and thinner, strange machines and IV drips suddenly appeared in our house, and he could no longer walk without help. My family began falling apart as tensions rose between my grandmothers, my mom, and my dad. Arguments were frequent, but the silence was constant. Though I was perceptive enough to recognize that my family was in pain, I made the mistake of believe I understood their pain. I resolved to help out as best I could, refrained from sharing my own fears and worries, yet encouraged them to express their own.
My father's suffering, my family's arguments, and even my own fears, soon lost their novelty. I would try to ease the strain between my grandmothers and my parents. But inside, I felt nothing...or at least, I ignored what I felt. Unable to handle my fears of loss and the unknown, I turned to resentment. Though never voiced aloud, I often thought, "Why did this have to happen to me? Why can't I just live a normal life, with normal parents?" As the chemo and therapy continued and my perfect world decaying before my eyes, I developed indifference to my family that was insensitive, disrespectful, and at the very least, bitter
Ahh thankyou!! This was a very personal story for me, so it took awhile writing it...
I did some research on the common apps limits, and there's actually a set limit this year (did not know that!). So bleh, gotta get my essay down to 500 words >.<
Any thoughts/comments/critiques are welcomed as I try to cut back this thing (the worst part of the essay process, I think)!
Does anyone else have any comments/critiques?
Though I was perceptive enough to recognize that my family was in pain, I made the mistake of believing I understood their pain.---I fixed the verb.
I resolved to help out as best I could, refraining from sharing my own fears and worries, yet encouraging them to express their own.---Again, I fixed the verb. Type these sentences 10 times each, and speak them aloud, so you can learn the correct grammar.
...I felt much older...but more alive than ever before. ---- I made a small change here so it would sound nicer.
You did a great job with this piece of writing. I know many people have experienced a loss like this, and they will benefit emotionally when they read your story.
Thanks for sharing it here. As for shortening it... you have to choose the paragraphs that are most important. They are all good, and it's too bad this must be shortened.
Really, even though maybe there is a word limit, this should not be shortened. Most of the time, essays improve when we shorten them, but not this time. Every paragraph is important. A piece of writing like this should not be cropped down to a particular word limit; it's something you excavated, and you should keep it intact.
If you have to get rid of a paragraph you can get rid of this one: Though I was perceptive enough to recognize ...
I think your essay is amazing! But, I think you need to go further into how this affected you. Although your essay very well written, college admission counselors want to know about you. So, eliminate some parts about how it affected your mother and other members of your family and show how this changed you. I am saying this from personal experience. I wrote about a similar story, but I talked more about the illness than myself. Other than that, you've done a great job.
Thankyou so much, Kevin and kzoria! I'll definitely try to work my essay more to be more personal and use the most important parts (to cut down word count).
I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)
Awesome essay. I truly enjoyed reading it, especially since I can somewhat relate to it. You're over by about 500 words, so you're right that the toughest part will be editing it. An essay like this makes a compelling argument for no word limit on the common app essay.
I'll have to read it more in order to help out more with the cutting. Personally, I'd start out by omitting the 2nd paragraph.
Reading about how your father had to go through these different treatments for cancer I can tell you from first hand because I had to go through the same thing. First thing I did was put it in Gods hand and left it there. From that time on I knew inside my hearts of hearts everything was going to be alright. All I Thought about was not letting this disease CANCER take over my life cause and my eyes cancer did not have me I had control of this disease I was very determined to beat it. Now I help others who are going through this disease. By telling them how God is and control he has the last say of our life, he's also our healer, doctor, and surgeon and he has all of the power no matter what the doctors say. Now I been cancer free for over seven years thanks to the God I served, he is on time God and he's will always be here for us even when our friend may turned there backs on us. CALL ON HIM AND HE WILL ANSWER. HAVE A BLESS DAY. MYRTIS
Thank you all for your comments. My father's cancer was a really tough time for me, so I'm glad I was able to portray that enough in the essay and how much I've learned from it.
Here's an updated version (830 words-ish, so still have a ways to cut!)
In some boxes packed away in the basement sit my nine-year-old crayon drawings of my family, the slightly-better-than-stick figure lines of my mother and father and me clasping hands and smiling. Beside them lay poems and sketches of my loving family, of especially my father, Baba...To me, he was perfect. Growing up, he was the perfect image I felt every father should be, and I believed I lived in a perfect world, with an ideal Mama and Baba, with an ideal family, with an ideal life. I viewed the world selfishly, seeing the world only the way I wanted to see it, and clutched onto that idea most desperately. Yet like all things, it crumbled away. In one cold October, Baba felt a lump behind his right ear. The doctors examined, and sure enough, it turned to be cancer.
Time passed and my father started chemo. Baba got thinner and thinner. My family, although wanting to do its best to help, began falling apart as tensions rose between my grandmothers, my mom, and my dad. Arguments were frequent, but the silence was constant. Though I was perceptive enough to recognize that my family was in pain, I made the mistake of believing I understood their pain. I resolved to help out as best I could, refraining from sharing my own fears and worries, yet encouraging them to express their own. But even caring and loving acts, if done long enough, can turn into monotonous and annoying chores.
My father's suffering, my family's arguments, and even my own fears, soon lost their novelty. On the outside, I would still help out my dad by doing things around the house. But inside, I felt nothing...or at least, I ignored what I felt. Unable to handle my fears of loss and the unknown, I turned to resentment. Though never voiced aloud, I often bemoaned, "Why did this have to happen to me? Why can't I just live a normal life, with normal parents?" As the chemo and increased, I developed an indifference to my family that was insensitive, bitter, and at the very least, disrespectful.
One Saturday afternoon I was preparing for a piano recital that evening, my dad slept on the couch in the family room. He had fallen asleep hours before, as he had done for several weeks now. But when he woke up, something was wrong... He was not lucid, talked with a lisp, and had the wide-eyed look of a lost child. As I stared at him laying there, the perfect world I created and hid behind shattered to dust. In front of me, my Baba-the very same person who was once my pillar of strength-now barely remembered who I was, much less my name. And for the first time in my life, I saw his tears. The hour-long drive to the hospital was a blur, as was the rush into the emergency room. I recall my father's moans, my mother's panic, and myself staring at the closed double doors of the emergency room as I waited for the diagnosis. I turned back to my father, with his gaunt face turned sideways, nearly translucent in the harsh lighting. A fear boiled up inside me and I ran out, desperate to escape.
I frantically darted across the hospital lobby until I found an empty seat. I sat there, motionless, and begged: Why? What wrong did that boy do to end there? What horror did that woman commit to suffer that? And Baba? My own father? They struggle to live, while I selfishly take life for granted...
I was humbled, for I had lost before but never suffered the agony that came with it. I had suffered before, but never summoned the will to fight to live, and I was pained, for I could not truly share my father's suffering. I received that pain-and realized I had an unlimited capacity to not only feel, but act for, if not with, my father, if I allowed myself. That day I found something in me, something that had always been there, but something I had never realized was there before. That day I learned that although my perfect world no longer existed, I still had a world to work my hardest in to make the best of what I have, and beyond. I could still live and laugh and love in this new world, adapting to the ups and downs and becoming stronger from each. Most of all, my mother was still my Mama, my father was still my Baba, and we were still together.
That day I finally let go of the scraps of childhood I had desperately clung to; that day I was finally ready to embrace the future. And as I walked out of those double doors into the hospital lobby, I felt much older...but more alive than ever before.
