Written by Deanna E. Barkett
When I was younger, I used to silently pray that I was nothing but like my father. He was so serious. His brow was always knit. My grandmother could not remember a time when my father had done anything wrong. He was too perfect. I felt timid and self-conscious around him.
My father was always offering advice by which he swore. Although they may have been ancient proverbs or old adages, they were always "Daddy originals" to me.
"When you're prepared, you'll never be scared," he would tell me when I was up late studying for an evil chemistry test.
"Haste makes waste," was his rejoinder when I would bring home a math exam littered with careless mistakes.
"When you lose an hour in the morning, you search for it the rest of the day," is the Chinese proverb I learned on more than one Saturday morning of a weekend filled with homework.
"Live by foresight, learn from hindsight," he would say when I was younger and only old enough to relate "fore" and "hind" to the legs of a horse These saying interminably buzzed in my ear at times when, as I got older, I wanted to scream: "I know, Dad! You've only been telling me these things since I was two years old!"
I never elevated my father to sage status. I always recognized that he wanted me to do my best, but his advice lacked a loving tone. Indeed, at times his became a voice of nagging monotony.
As I have grown older, however, I have realized that Dad-in his own way-has these many years been trying to guide me. The denouement of my fathers' motivational speeches occurred this summer. I was away at summer school for two months in Massachusetts. It was the longest separation I have had from my parents.
Communication with my family consisted of more e-mails messages than telephone conversations. My father corresponded with me more than anyone else. He always returned my e-mails promptly and tried in hi sown silly way ("love ya!" which is not at all like my father) to make me laugh. So much so, I was reminded of another of his sayings, "When you lose your sense of humor, you lose your mind."
Near the end of summer school, Mom told me that Dad had printed all of my e-mails and was planning to take them to the family reunion. "You have pleased him so much, Dee. He is so proud of you and loves you so much," she told me. I had an epiphany: In my messages, Dad was reading about preparation and patience, time management and foresight. I made him laugh a lot too. Then I remembered another of his sayings, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." And I cried.
The reason that I chose this essay is because I like the narrative style of this essay. Using short paragraphs, the author made this essay easily readable, which will definitely help the admission officer who must be overwhelmed by thousands of other essays to read. Also, the author successfully combined enough amount of humor into the essay to make it fun and still kept enough tension to make the reader focused. With all these things combined and with, not unique, but still effective and moving story, this essays makes you feel like meeting the writer.
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