Success by Diana

Success by Diana - January 2018 Scholarship Essay

I’ve been told for a pretty girl I have stubby hands. We use our hands to communicate with the world as much as we use our words. Growing up, people used to make fun of my stubby hands, and rather than take it as an insult, I always smiled and agreed. My hands look like the hands of every woman in my family, and I am proud to have such a distinguishing mark. Through my seventeen years of life, I have noticed that my hands tie back to many important things in my life. They have brought me back to my culture, family, religion and career goals, time and time again. There’s history in these hands.
I was brought up in an Albanian household. Albanians are well known for their bone-deep patriotism and high spirits, and my house was no exception. Even though caring for one another is second nature for us, over the years, my mother and her hands have gone above and beyond for my family and I. The older I got and the more attentive I became, I began to notice my mother’s hands get wrinklier, but they never paused in their dedication. My mother’s hands still work the magic they worked when she first became a wife and mother. Her hands are able to make the best food I have ever tasted, comfort me in ways that ensure me I’ll never be too hurt to recover, and they hold the promise of caring for my children as her mother did for her, and as I will do with my own children. My mother’s hands tell a story of what it is like to be a woman, and the roles of a woman within our community. Her hands were my first inspiration to becoming a caregiver.
Although my mother’s hands were my introduction to the role of women in our family, I started to see it everywhere I looked. In my great grandmother’s hands, which turned to fists at the injustice being done to her kin and country, and found the strength to relocate, even though her history was in the soil she left behind. I found determination as strong and cold as the concrete bunkers that still litter my country in the memory of my great grandmother, who I never got to meet, but will always think of in awe. She watched over my mother while my grandparents went to work, and is the one who first gave my mother a Bible, whose hands turned the pages with her until she could do it herself. Those stubby hands would hold the rosary outside on her porch, in defiance of the government officials who patrolled their streets. She would pray, with her hands and with her mouth, and the officials would watch, but they always looked away first. Her hands have taught me that through the many hardships in life, you must stand your ground for the things you believe in.
I am my mother’s daughter. I know I will follow in her footsteps and care for others every day of my life. I know I need to put my hands to use. I aspire to help kids with their health and their lives. The helping hands in my family gave me the strength to continue on this path, even when things seem difficult. Those women, my ancestors, never let others dictate how they should live their lives and put their hands to work. They taught me that I need to use my hands in the best way I know how. I want to give children comfort and safety, like they did. I want to practice the words of the powerful Mother Teresa by serving my patients with willing hands. I want to make the women who stood before me proud, using these stubby hands of mine.