Feedback please? UC Prompt #1

BlessedEthio
Sun, 23 Nov 2014 01:23:08 +0000

Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

I came from a family that suffered.
My parents were both born in Ethiopia, but were raised on opposite sides of the wealth scale. My dad lived in a single-room shack with thirteen other children while my mom grew up attending a French private school, lived in a three story house, and had multiple servants. They both immigrated to America while in their youth, met one another, married, and had me. When I was seven years old, my mom divorced my dad and bluntly admitted she only married him to become a citizen. After the divorce, my enraged dad began to blame the coldness of my mom’s heart on her wealth in Ethiopia. He told me the rich didn’t know what suffering was and they were unappreciative of the world. He convinced me to believe the poor deserved everything and the rich deserved nothing. In 2010, I visited my dad’s family in Ethiopia. My grandpa died of heart disease while i was there and I witnessed my dad’s sorrow because of it. This added on to my rage towards the wealthy. Why don’t they suffer? Don’t the poor go through enough already? I began to resent my mother for having a better life than my dad as if it were her fault her family was wealthy. I saw her as ungrateful, spoiled, etc. Shortly after I came back from Ethiopia I was given the news that mom’s sister was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was the woman who took care of me for the first three years of my life so the news was difficult to handle. After her doctor told us she had about three months to live, she decided she did not want to spend her last days in a hospital, so she moved in with my mom and I, and stopped treatments such as chemo and medication. On the night she passed away, my mom was asleep. I was walking down the hallway from the bathroom to my room when I heard a noise coming from my aunt’s room. When i went to go figure out what it was, i found her holding onto her stomach with tears in her eyes. I went over to her bedside and asked her if she needed anything, but she just took my hand, kissed it and closed her eyes. When her grip fell loose, i realized what had happened. I screamed for my mom, who then called 9-1-1, but it was too late. About one month after her sister’s death, my grandmother passed away due to ovarian cancer, and a few months later, my grandfather died from a heart attack. I was grieving, but my mom fell into a depression. The death of my family members opened my eyes to the ignorance of how i viewed my mom. Whether we are rich or poor, we are still human, we all suffer, and we are all vulnerable to disease and death. That is when i decided i needed to stop asking why, and start educating myself so that I may help others who are suffering from the diseases and ailments that kill so many undeserving individuals. I decided I wanted to join the world of medicine. i believe i was meant to not only witness, but to feel the pain that resulted from all these deaths. A proper physician is able to treat physical and mental illnesses with compassion and understanding. Without the period of grief i went through, I wouldn’t have the passion for medicine physicians should have. There’s nothing I love more than living, and I want it to be my responsibility to help others live as long as they possibly can.