Helping a student with her college essays made me think back on my own personal statement. Here's me at the big age of 16 talking about experiencing grief and loss as a ten year old.
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I’ve wished upon a shooting star only once in my life. It was my first sighting. August 2001.
I knew at that exact moment what it was. No big burst of light, the way a firework’s tail drizzles down, each fainter and fainter. No sparkly tail, like the designs of a sparkler, little pops of light along the center of exuberance. No magnificent splendor. It was merely a streak of white light, hardly half an inch long in the vast royal blue sky, brightened by the speckles of stars and the waning crescent. Not even a second passed. It was quick, it was over, but it was there. I took the chance. I knew what I wanted, and I made the wish fast. Who knew when its magic was going to run out?
I wanted, no needed to see him. My grandpa. It had only been a few days, but the days were excruciatingly slow, the seconds dragged on endlessly, each tick of the clock an eternity. His warm, gentle face. The softness of his features, especially his eyes, the way they twinkled when he smiled. The kind that would instantly spread to all. Pure goodness radiated from him. All those little things he did. He watched us. He was there for us. Where was he now?
But I could make it better. I would make it better.
Excitedly, I told my uncle, “I made a wish. I wished he was alive.”
He half turned in my direction, laughed, and shrugged it off. It could never happen. What a waste of a wish, he said. He was worried though, his eyes showed it, as he searched my face, evaluating the firmness of the foothold I possessed in reality.
“Well, I know it’s not possible, but still, I wish…”
His shoulders dropped, tension eased. “Yeah…but it could never happen,” he repeated, forcing a chuckle as he walked into the distance, trying to convince himself rather than me.
“You never know though,” the thought flickered through my mind, as I glanced once more into the direction of the illumination, marveling at the sense of emptiness it now possessed. “Yeah, it could happen.”
It didn’t happen. There was no bad dream. No miracle time machine. No nothing.
So stupid. So dumb. So senseless. So shameful. So naïve. So…just so. How could I think like this? Cast away a wish, a silly dream onto a piece of falling rock. How could I ever think this? Believe that he’d be back, just like that.
But worst of all, he was gone. Plain and simple. Gone.
A few months later, I was finally ready to move on. Unwind. Unleash it all. The anger, frustration, sorrow, emptiness, pour out every secret emotion I had since harbored. My victim: a blank, white sheet of paper.
I sat, pen and paper in hand, letting the memories flood back. Tears trickling down as I lived in the moment I wrote. Re-living each scene. Seeing it once more. I wrote. The unfairness of it all. The resemblance each family member shared with him, and his morals and lessons, forever there, and his stories, to be passed on from one generation to the next, and his life, to be remembered by all, and his passion, always an inspiration, and as long as I kept writing these down, he would be there, the memories emblazoned with life, and…and…and it clicked.
I haven’t stopped writing since.
I’ve wished upon a star only once in my life. It was my first, and likely my last. That star will make its way around the edge of the universe and back again, sharing magic and miracles, making dreams come true. I’ve got mine. It’s time for someone else.














