The question on the application was:
Two weeks after my 15th birthday, my best friend Robin was tentatively
diagnosed with leukemia. She was 16. She called me to say that she was
driving with her grandmother to Salt Lake City for a more concrete
diagnosis. That was the last I heard from her for almost a week.
During that time I went through nearly every emotion imaginable -- from
fear, to anger, to sorrow. I almost felt that I had lost her already.
I called everywhere I thought she might be. Finally, I called her uncle,
who told me the name of the hospital where she was. She was in the
intensive care unit. That is what scared me the most; she had been in
intensive care while I was hoping she'd had a false alarm. I was
frightened that we could be so out of touch. I was terrified that I
could have lost her without even knowing it, without having a chance to
tell her all the things I hadn't thought to say.
At the end of that week, I drove to Salt Lake with my mother and another
friend. To see Robin in intensive care was only the first difficult
event in a series of emotionally draining episodes. During the month
she spent in the hospital, she lost more than 30 pounds, all of her hair,
and most of her strength. When she got out of the hospital, she was so
weak that she got tired going to the bathroom and couldn't open a can of
soda. I felt helpless and the more helpless I felt, the angrier I got.
I couldn't understand how something like this could happen to someone
like Robin.
Robin's protocol required two years of chemotherapy. I made a conscious
decision to stick by her every step of the way. Though I was sure that
it would be hard for me to see her go through painful and sickening
treatments, I absolutely refused to let her go through them alone. We
became much closer during those two years. She said some things that
will stay with me for the rest of my life. She told me to go after the
things I want because if I don't, I may not be around to try for them
next week. She said she thought perhaps life should be shorter so we
could appreciate what time we have all the more.
She told me to never give up because there is always something worth
fighting for. She lived that truth. Even though if two more days had
passed before diagnosis, she would have died, she refused to give in to
it. She stood against it and challenged it. She said to it, "You can
try to take me, but I'll not make it easy for you. I have things I want
to do that I havenUt had the chance to do yet." Nothing has inspired me
like her courage.
She graduated with her class, despite the fact that she had to catch up
with more than three months of work in her junior year, and do all of her
work at home. She is now attending a technical school and has finished her
chemotherapy protocol. The most important thing that she has given me is
a greater understanding of what it means to be alive; how important it is
to truly live life. She showed me there are things that have to be worth
all of our energy to make our lives worthwhile.
"The very least you can do in life is figure out what you believe in.
And the very most you can do is live within that belief," said a character
in a book I once read. There isn't a truer statement, and I saw Robin
live it.
I believe in friendship and learning and wisdom and love. I believe in
life and courage and creating a world worth passing on to the next
generation. I believe in giving something everything so that humanity
can share in its beauty. I believe in living to my fullest potential so
that I can be proud of myself when I look back on my life.
(This was a college entrance essay, written in 1994. The language may not
be what I'd use today, but the lesson holds true.)
Return to thoughts and musings.
© 1999 Rosa Carson
"Evaluate a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning
to you."
And this is what I came up with: