Difficult Battles by Thomas

Difficult Battles by Thomas - March 2024 Scholarship Essay

Difficult Battles

In life many obstacles have come my way and as a child nothing came easy to me. When I was younger my parents always told me that I needed to be the best I could be. To not smoke, to not do drugs, to listen, and to be silent. Growing up I took these rules literally. To listen to those around me, to hear out those who may not have the same opinion as me and to be understanding. At the age of three my parents decided to divorce after a series of unfortunate events in their lives that couldn’t possibly intertwine with one another. This was the topic I wrote my college essay on. When I was three my mother told my father to lay me in bed, but my father insisted that I was a “man” and that I could sleep in a bed like a big boy. A few hours later my mother comes home and lets her eyes carelessly flutter around the room she had created. The room she longed for since she was young. The room that she wanted to escape her family from. She snaps back into reality and looks at her loving husband and her eyes fixate on the area her son should be. She tried to shake her husband awake but alas he was in deep sleep. Years later I still can’t blame her for not being able to wake him up because I still can’t. She starts throwing papers around the room trying to find where her son could be.

My mother thinks of her first-born child, the gift God gave her. The one thing keeping her tethered to her husband. She creeps around the bed and the idea sets in. She knows exactly where the trash can is. She knows there is a possibility that her son is trapped behind the pearly gates, but she doesn’t want to believe it. My father wakes up, in a daze he looks around the room and wonders why there are papers all over the floor. He looked at my mother and described to me that the fear on her face was like no other. There I was, face down, in a trashcan. It took a lot of rebuilding but many years later my life has improved tremendously.
I moved into my grandparents’ house 2 years after this experience and was welcomed with open arms. My life would be so much different if my grandmother and grandfather didn’t make the sacrifices they made for me.

When you have parents that say, “To not smoke, to not do drugs, to listen, and to be silent” Think of the past they had. Think of the people your parents used to be. Think that the mistakes they made are what led them to tell you to behave. From this situation I knew I had to be the best for my family, it taught me to work well with others and when others have different opinions from my own, I hear them out, I listen to what they have to say and open my eyes to the possibility that my own views can change. I knew from when I was very young that being able to be others' lives before your own was a key trait to be a Nurse. I’ve always wanted to be a nurse and to prevent what happened to me from happening to any other child on this planet. Soon after becoming a nurse, I would like to sign with a Travel Nurse Agency to travel around the world and help anyone who needs me. A few days ago, when I was accepted to The University of West Florida my dreams of becoming the best Nurse there ever has truly started to become a reality for me. I will attend UWF in the BSN Nursing program and study to benefit everyone’s lives around me.