Several of you have said that you can't think of what to write for this essay prompt. I agree it can be a very challenging task if you refuse to be candid about yourself. You have to forget about impressing. You have to speak from the heart, and until you do, you are just going to drift aimlessly. Perhaps the opening of my essay might help you see that you have to open yourself. You know that I do not frequently share private emotions with you, but I am going to here. It is only the opening because I don't want you to think your essay has to emulate mine. It is your purpose...this is mine...
I can remember it as if it were yesterday. My mother stood in front of the wall display
her eight children’s baby portraits. She
was introducing Sister Clare Francis to each of us. She said, “This is Mary Ellen; she is my
worker bee--very industrious yet so very classically beautiful. This is Paulette; she is my peacemaker. That lovely smile and gorgeous eyes can melt
the coldest heart. These are my
twins—Nancy and Donna. They are as
talented as they are beautiful. Nancy
can sew and paint and draw and never had any lessons. Donna can sing and play the piano.” Her eyes went to my picture and I waited to
hear those words that would tell just how my mother, the person’s whose opinion
is paramount to an eight year old, saw me.
“And this is Kay. She is our
smart one.” I was crushed. Being smart was not what I wanted to
hear. I wanted to be beautiful and
talented just like my older sisters.
After all, they were all smart, too.
They made great grades in school.
I was nothing then. Nothing else
could be said about me. I just made good
grades. I had no purpose in life. It took me many years of struggling with this
thought to realize that my mother was in fact speaking the truth. Many years later as I looked at my older
sisters and the struggles they have endured, I knew I was blessed to be the
smart one.
I watched
my sister Mary Ellen be abused by her husband for over 20 years. Her heart was no longer strong and she
frowned and hated rather than walked like the classic beauty she was. I watched my sister Paulette lose her lovely
smile and bright eyes to years of being oppressed by marrying a man who had a
heart so frozen in prejudice and hate
and the desire for wealth that even she could not melt it. I watched Nancy and Donna struggle as young
married women with children before they had found themselves. I was the smart one because I learned my
purpose was to be the one never to settle, never to give up believing in the
good, never to sell myself short, and never to allow myself to be a victim of
self-doubt. In the process of doing these
things, I learned my greatest purpose was to hold everyone else together as
each of my sisters and my brother encountered weaknesses and troubles in
life. I am the anchor—the anchor that
keeps the boat of my family afloat in the face of tempests.
