A Promise to Mom by Pauline Kate

A Promise to Mom by Pauline Kate - August 2024 Scholarship Essay

I was 15 years old when I found out my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. My dad told me to get in the car one night so he could get some gas. He didn’t look me in the eye, he didn’t play any music, and we weren’t even headed to the gas station. He drove around our neighborhood and explained that my mom wouldn’t be at home much because she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I felt numb as the tears came out of my eyes, and I watched some come out of my father’s as well. He didn’t even say anything, he drove us home and told me that I shouldn’t let my mom see me like this. I was left to sit there trying to get myself together before I went back inside the house.

My mom getting diagnosed with cancer, I knew it'd change my outlook on life, but I made an oath that it would be in a positive way. I chose not to look at my mom’s diagnosis as a negative thing but as an opportunity to make her proud. I chose to bury myself in schoolwork and excel in my studies, not only for myself and my future but for my mom. I attended tutorial sessions, started my school’s first official Red Cross club, and signed up for college credit classes. Not only did I gain a new sense of academic determination, but I obtained a job as a dog trainer. I proudly showed every report card and dog picture to my mom, and every smile she gave me motivated me to do more. Every ounce of pain she was going through prompted me to surpass what I’ve been doing and push myself to be the best daughter I could be.

But unfortunately, she died on February 3, 2024. That’s when I realized something about myself. It hit me that I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I’m a coward. I wasn’t doing all this schoolwork or dog training to make her happy, or to make her proud, or to push myself. None of those motivations were real. I was using everything I could as a distraction. I was using it to keep myself occupied and not to worry about my mom. It was to avoid looking at her and accepting that she had cancer. Every time my mom had to go to the hospital for pain, I didn’t want to know anything about it. Every update she had from the doctor about her diagnosis: in one ear and out the other. I avoided every single detail about her cancer and refused to acknowledge it. Even when she got admitted into the hospice center, I couldn’t bear to know how bad my mom got over the past months. Now she gets to rest, but I’m left to live with the fact that her promises of seeing me graduate high school and calling me every day when I’m at college won’t happen.

My mom was the most patient, loving person there ever was. To me, she wasn’t just my mother; she was Manelie Muceros Nillo, my hero, my role model, my everything. Her passing away prompted me to realize that my destructive, avoidant attitude wasn’t something that she wanted to live by. So hiding behind my avoidance issues and calling myself a hard-working star student isn’t how I should live either. My new educational goal is to allow myself to heal while acting with a purpose for my studies with virtue and positivity.

So throughout my time at college, I need to have the same mindset my mom had. She was working full-time as a nurse while enrolled in graduate school, and with all the tasks she had to do, she maintained a positive, determined mentality regarding everything. I learned that my mom’s passing couldn’t let me lose my passion and drive in work or school. I knew she wouldn’t allow me to do that, and that’s not the path she wanted me to go down. So, instead of restricting my mind to a destructive mentality, I will strive to have the same purposeful frame of mind that my mom had. Because throughout my 17 years of life, whether it was my work or school, my mom guided me through it, and she died knowing that the person I most wanted to be was her.