Here's part 2. It's hot off the press. I haven't checked for mistakes, so please bear with me
I am going to revise the last two paragraphs I think.
We moved around a lot. I went to three different middle schools. My mom was taking different jobs all over the country while she was getting her general education diploma and going to college. We never realized how difficult it was for her to finish high school and attend college while having a teenaged daughter and trouble making son, but she did it like a professional. After she finished undergraduate work, she applied to Harvard University for a Master’s program. She was admitted on a full scholarship. We relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts where I went to high school. My mother always stressed the importance of seeing the world as she traveled with my father when she was in her early teens. After she gave birth to us and he left, she did not have the time or resources to see everything she wanted to see. My mother made it her goal to provide my sister and me with as much opportunity as anyone could possibly need. She obtained her Master’s degree from one of the most prestigious Universities in the world, not because she wanted to brighten her own future, but because she wanted to cast a shining light on ours. No matter what I wanted to accomplish in my life, my mother has found a way to make it possible. She has been my rock through all the darkness and suffering I experienced with my health and relationships.
A few years ago I was at a party with some high school friends. It was a going away party for my friend Xi who was going away to the University of California – Los Angeles the next day. We were having our last hurrah and having an awesome time. I was so happy to be with all my closest friends in the same room, but at the same time, I was upset that we would be splitting up to go to our respective colleges in the coming weeks. We sat in a circle on Xi’s living room floor and one by one we recounted our favorite high school memories. I had been drinking quite a bit and told a story about my then girlfriend, Leanne and I riding our bikes in the rain. The next thing I remember was being in a bright room and freezing. I pulled a blanket up over me and looked around. My mother was sitting on the side of my bed. I was in a hospital.
Nobody came forward to give the exact details of what happened that night, but some assumptions were made that I got beaten into a coma that night in Xi’s living room over what the story I told about Leanne and me. Twelve bones in my face were broken and my mother was sobbing at the thought of me never looking the same again. I would be undergoing reconstructive surgery to preserve my nasal passages and repair my face in a few hours. My dreams suddenly were taken from me; I would not be moving into my dorm at Harvard in a few weeks. Instead, I would be recovering from my incident and attending classes at the local community college.
I suffered from depression and severe head pain after my coma and surgery. I quickly failed out of school and begun doing drugs and drinking to numb myself from the throbbing that had become the center of my life. By the time I realized what was happening in my life and what I was doing to myself, I had already destroyed my mother. With my drug use and instability along with my sister’s diagnosis as a high functioning schizophrenic, my mother had become a recluse who did nothing but worry about her children. My sister moved out of our house and in with a much older man, which was practically a re-enactment of my mother’s life with my father. They became married after a four-month courtship. I was working at a chicken shack to pay for my drugs and alcohol. My mother held a wonderful job, but could not make ends meet with all the student loans she still had from her undergraduate work and my medical bills. She and I moved into an apartment in the suburbs where I saw the light. I realized that I had let my mother down and that nearly killed me. We did not see or hear much of my sister after we moved into the apartment.
With time, I straightened out my life; I stopped using drugs with the help of some therapy; it was free through my mother’s heath insurance. I got a better job and decided I would not forego my dreams due to some setbacks I face. I wrote a letter to the Chancellor of Harvard explaining my story, met with him and got admitted beginning that fall semester. I would start as a freshman two years after I had been admitted the first time. With the help of grants and my mother, I graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude. I went on to get my Master’s from another top University in Germany and completed another Master’s degree at the University of Melbourne in Australia. I have met many people in my life, but none have had the impact that my mother did. As she is nearing retirement from a career she loves, I am still trying to decide what I want to do with my education. I have worked as a missionary in east Asia and tried to impact the lives of others, always keeping in mind the opportunities and self-esteem my mother has instilled in me throughout my childhood.
No matter what problems I faced or what I decided I wanted to accomplish in my life, my mother has found a way to make it happen. When I told her I wanted to go to school on the other side of the world, she found a way to fund my tuition. She has helped me get many scholarships and fellowships to further my education and missionary work. When I lay in the hospital in a coma wondering if I would ever look the same or remember the past, my mother reassured me that no matter what happened, I would always be a strong, wonderful person. When my sister had a mental breakdown as a result of her schizophrenia, my mother was the first one by her side. When my sister and I were not sure why our father abandoned us, she reminded us that we only needed each other in the world. It makes me sad sometimes when I talk to her on the phone and she tells me how much trouble she is having with her retirement pension or how she wishes she had someone to share her golden years with. I know she wishes that she had more in her life – more friends and family to surround and support her – I feel badly that I cannot be with her to tell her that she is an amazing person. Our phone conversations do not seem like enough support. I realize that if it weren’t for my sister and me she could perhaps be living a life she found much more enjoyable. Then I think of my father who is living a carefree life without the financial and emotional burdens my sister and I were. I fall asleep each night remembering how much I was loved and how much opportunity I have been provided my whole life. The life I have told you about could have been much different had I not had such a strong role model. She is passed on now, but her memory shall live on in every relationship I form and every word I speak.