Embracing the Unexpected by Emily

Embracing the Unexpected by Emily - February 2025 Scholarship Essay

Toward the end of Junior year, I felt drained from pursuing all that I hoped to accomplish. Being a part of multiple extracurricular activities while juggling family obligations has never come easy. Every night I would work on daily assignments and study, which took 5 to 6 hours.​​ Amid all this juggling, the most heartbreaking thing occurred in my personal life: my oldest sister’s pregnancy loss. Since the baby had made it past 34 weeks, we were sure that the baby was healthy. My oldest sister expected a baby girl, but instead, we were given the most beautiful angel.

I remember sitting in my French class when I received the text from my mom. I held back the tears and covered up my sadness all day with a smile. When I got home my mom invited me to go to the hospital, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I declined, but when I thought about how I wouldn't see the baby again, I had a change of heart. When I stepped into the hospital room to see her baby, the tears I had held in came pouring out. The loss felt like a deep hit, like someone just grasped tightly onto my heart. I was a lump of snow, slowly melting away on what I thought was a good day. When I was asked if I wanted to hold the baby, I couldn’t bear it. Sometimes, I think to myself, if only I was more knowledgeable about this kind of topic I could’ve helped my sister understand what her weekly baby reports were about. Maybe she wasn’t fully understanding the baby’s health due to the little knowledge my family has within the medical field. It makes me wonder if maybe the baby would be in our arms today.

Despite this devastation, I have a strong belief that things happen for a reason. While healing, it sparked my interest in sonography and the health sciences field. Looking up to my older sister and watching her pursue her nursing dreams, I had always been intimidated by the struggles and hours of studying she did to get where she was. Her challenges convinced me that the health sciences field would be off of my list of careers, but my oldest sister’s pregnancy loss opened my eyes. By pursuing a career in health sciences, I can provide different types of help and guidance to my family and others. As a Hmong individual with refugee parents who are not at all familiar with the medical field and its terminology, I am determined to learn, teach others, and educate my community. I have the ability to communicate with Hmong speakers and it’s something that I embody. Having the fear of losing my Hmong speaking tongue, I am eager to take Hmong classes at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Improving and developing into someone I envision working in a clinical workspace is something that I am longing to accomplish. I want my future patients to feel safe and know that I will be by their side step by step, making sure to communicate in a way that will be easier for them to comprehend.

This is what excites me: my path is unpredictable; how some things will appear in your life and leave you but, with a valuable lesson. Although devastating, I am glad to have gone to the hospital that day to say my last goodbye. My tears showed my pain, but my presence showed that I care. This loss reminded me to continue to be persistent and to never give up even in the hardest times. I am strongly confident in myself, and I’ve proven myself wrong when I most doubted myself. Now, I can certainly say that I can take on any challenge if I just believe and put my mind to it.