I have a bit of a favour to ask of anyone willing to help me out. I have approached you guys because, well, you like to read so I thought I would ahve most success with persuading you to do this favour for me and also most helpful with your critical feedback. I have to write an essay for a possibe scholarship. The question is "Write an essay about an important role model or friend who has had a profound influence on your thinking and or belief system." Creative,analytical or original merit. 500- 1000 words. I have written something that is a bit too tell all for my usual critical audience who would help me so that is why I am asking your help. So if anyone could jsut proof read it or whatever it would be greatly appreciated. If i'm being a pain in the arse and you would rather jab yourself in the eye with a biro than read my silly little essay than I'm sorry for wasting your time adn so be it. If not thanks in advance....
My cousin, Lachlan Nicholas Charles Catt was born on the 15th of June 1998. It was a quick labour, and a happy and healthy baby boy was born to my elated aunty Michelle and uncle David, a brother to Simone, Jessika and Natalie. The family was all informed of its thirty eighth member. A sigh of relief made by all since the niggling thought of another tragedy after Lachlan’s elder brother Nicholas had died from complications soon after birth a few years earlier. That was until Lachlan was handed to my aunty Michelle for his first feed. As he suckled as naturally as every baby ever before him a chemical chain reaction began to occur. He began to convulse and an acidic mixture foamed from his mouth and nose. He was rushed to emergency and fed bicarbonate of soda to combat this bizarre reaction to what is the most normal and healithiest start to every child’s life.
As it turned out, Lachlan had a disease so rare it had no name. A form of acidosis no male had ever survived. Given no life expectancy at all, every breath that Lachlan took was a scientific feat. He kept going far and beyond anyone’s expectations, anyone’s wildest dreams. Every time they warned us that the chances weren’t good, as he went in to yet another severe epileptic seizure and inevitably cardiac arrest, every time they said that the pneumonia would take him this time and every time he battled through to yet another family Christmas to be seen on his bunny rug gurgling up at a family that literally adored him he was changing lives more profoundly than anyone could have imagined.
Lachlan passed away on the 26th of July 2004 and I felt like I had had the wind literally thumped out of me. This felt like my first experience of reality. I had meandered my way through life. I had not had the very easiest of lives, but apart from a bit of bullying in primary school there was nothing much to complain about. For the past two years I had not cried once, I think I was detached from my world. The only time I could come close was when my eyes watered from forced retching. I had become bulimic. I think this was all in an effort to feel. Just to make myself feel something emotional. Just something more than this averageness. To make some jumps and dips in this path that seemed to go forever smoothly in the same direction, a path of mediocrity. The day Lachlan died I threw up on instinct. Bulimia had gone from a fun little way to control my world, a dangerous thrill, a way to keep within the boundaries of peer and societal expectations, to something I needed to cope with what actually was real. When I realised what I had done I thought to myself, “How dare you.” How dare you take away from this momentous occasion. This very real tragedy, by debasing it down to some eating disorder.
By making Lachlan’s death about myself and my own problems I felt so very guilty. I can only describe the feeling when Lachy died as blackness. I felt black and rotten inside. It felt foreign and wrong and I was desperate to remove this feeling from myself. The physical process of purging offered momentary relief but the waves of guilt that swamped the grief made everything so much worse.
When I went to Lachy’s funeral my cousin Joshua, who was ten at the time asked me to help him read out a story he had written about Lachlan during the service, just in case he wouldn’t be able to. When it was our turn I walked to the front of the service with Joshua and he started to read about “Lachy fighter,” our nickname for Lachlan. In the most honest way, that only a child unadulterated by literary techniques, expectations or subconscious plageurism can, he read his ‘story’ of his memories of Lachy. Of course it only took about five words before Joshua broke down and couldn’t continue. So I was left to read aloud this child’s words of his love for his cousin. How he couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk but could communicate his love and enjoyment of his family. His gurgles and chirps as we doted on him, blowing rasberries on his tummy and clapping with overflowing pride while he struggled with all his mite to sit up, only to topple back down, the feat too much an ask for his enfeebled frame.
It wasn’t until this point. Surrounded by my family and reading the beautiful words of my younger cousin, raw and precise in their honest context that I was able to realise the power of Lachlan. Of everything he had achieved with so little to start with. That Lachlan’s life had a point. He brought together with love a squabbling family and made his mother a hero in the eyes of everyone that knew her. He taught me that happiness is relative and that taking anything for granted is a huge mistake. That no matter how hard I think something is, it would be a travesty and insult to my cousin Lachlan for me to ever, ever give up, not until I had exhausted every last grain of my existence. That is how we do it in my family. Taking a compromise of the easy way for a lesser result is not what we are about and would undermine Lachlan’s existence.
I realised all of this from Lachlan. His death was the point where a decision was to be made by me in regards to how I was going to live my life. To keep going with this way of life that was slowly beginning to consume me or to realise that everything is much bigger than some petty weight issue. Judging my happiness on whether I have lost a kilo or not can only be described as stupid when I have received the blessing of having been given the gift of the wake up call of a lifetime from my cousin. I will not lower myself to a goal of losing five kilos by the holidays but will strive to be the very best I can be, to give as much of myself as I can. To settle for no less and to not give up till the last breath is gasped. For that is what Lachlan did. He fought and he achieved. Had he given up and died when he was supposed to, and not lived for another six years with his abundance of love and inspiration he would have only been a tragedy, but because he battled and fought he became a triumph. This is the profound influence he had on my life, how he changed the way I think and what I believe in. My cousin, my role model. A six year old boy who was given so little to work with and made it amount to so much.
My cousin, Lachlan Nicholas Charles Catt was born on the 15th of June 1998. It was a quick labour, and a happy and healthy baby boy was born to my elated aunty Michelle and uncle David, a brother to Simone, Jessika and Natalie. The family was all informed of its thirty eighth member. A sigh of relief made by all since the niggling thought of another tragedy after Lachlan’s elder brother Nicholas had died from complications soon after birth a few years earlier. That was until Lachlan was handed to my aunty Michelle for his first feed. As he suckled as naturally as every baby ever before him a chemical chain reaction began to occur. He began to convulse and an acidic mixture foamed from his mouth and nose. He was rushed to emergency and fed bicarbonate of soda to combat this bizarre reaction to what is the most normal and healithiest start to every child’s life.
As it turned out, Lachlan had a disease so rare it had no name. A form of acidosis no male had ever survived. Given no life expectancy at all, every breath that Lachlan took was a scientific feat. He kept going far and beyond anyone’s expectations, anyone’s wildest dreams. Every time they warned us that the chances weren’t good, as he went in to yet another severe epileptic seizure and inevitably cardiac arrest, every time they said that the pneumonia would take him this time and every time he battled through to yet another family Christmas to be seen on his bunny rug gurgling up at a family that literally adored him he was changing lives more profoundly than anyone could have imagined.
Lachlan passed away on the 26th of July 2004 and I felt like I had had the wind literally thumped out of me. This felt like my first experience of reality. I had meandered my way through life. I had not had the very easiest of lives, but apart from a bit of bullying in primary school there was nothing much to complain about. For the past two years I had not cried once, I think I was detached from my world. The only time I could come close was when my eyes watered from forced retching. I had become bulimic. I think this was all in an effort to feel. Just to make myself feel something emotional. Just something more than this averageness. To make some jumps and dips in this path that seemed to go forever smoothly in the same direction, a path of mediocrity. The day Lachlan died I threw up on instinct. Bulimia had gone from a fun little way to control my world, a dangerous thrill, a way to keep within the boundaries of peer and societal expectations, to something I needed to cope with what actually was real. When I realised what I had done I thought to myself, “How dare you.” How dare you take away from this momentous occasion. This very real tragedy, by debasing it down to some eating disorder.
By making Lachlan’s death about myself and my own problems I felt so very guilty. I can only describe the feeling when Lachy died as blackness. I felt black and rotten inside. It felt foreign and wrong and I was desperate to remove this feeling from myself. The physical process of purging offered momentary relief but the waves of guilt that swamped the grief made everything so much worse.
When I went to Lachy’s funeral my cousin Joshua, who was ten at the time asked me to help him read out a story he had written about Lachlan during the service, just in case he wouldn’t be able to. When it was our turn I walked to the front of the service with Joshua and he started to read about “Lachy fighter,” our nickname for Lachlan. In the most honest way, that only a child unadulterated by literary techniques, expectations or subconscious plageurism can, he read his ‘story’ of his memories of Lachy. Of course it only took about five words before Joshua broke down and couldn’t continue. So I was left to read aloud this child’s words of his love for his cousin. How he couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk but could communicate his love and enjoyment of his family. His gurgles and chirps as we doted on him, blowing rasberries on his tummy and clapping with overflowing pride while he struggled with all his mite to sit up, only to topple back down, the feat too much an ask for his enfeebled frame.
It wasn’t until this point. Surrounded by my family and reading the beautiful words of my younger cousin, raw and precise in their honest context that I was able to realise the power of Lachlan. Of everything he had achieved with so little to start with. That Lachlan’s life had a point. He brought together with love a squabbling family and made his mother a hero in the eyes of everyone that knew her. He taught me that happiness is relative and that taking anything for granted is a huge mistake. That no matter how hard I think something is, it would be a travesty and insult to my cousin Lachlan for me to ever, ever give up, not until I had exhausted every last grain of my existence. That is how we do it in my family. Taking a compromise of the easy way for a lesser result is not what we are about and would undermine Lachlan’s existence.
I realised all of this from Lachlan. His death was the point where a decision was to be made by me in regards to how I was going to live my life. To keep going with this way of life that was slowly beginning to consume me or to realise that everything is much bigger than some petty weight issue. Judging my happiness on whether I have lost a kilo or not can only be described as stupid when I have received the blessing of having been given the gift of the wake up call of a lifetime from my cousin. I will not lower myself to a goal of losing five kilos by the holidays but will strive to be the very best I can be, to give as much of myself as I can. To settle for no less and to not give up till the last breath is gasped. For that is what Lachlan did. He fought and he achieved. Had he given up and died when he was supposed to, and not lived for another six years with his abundance of love and inspiration he would have only been a tragedy, but because he battled and fought he became a triumph. This is the profound influence he had on my life, how he changed the way I think and what I believe in. My cousin, my role model. A six year old boy who was given so little to work with and made it amount to so much.
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But not sure if my advice/reviewing will help you but it seems as if your essay was more to do with the emotion and him rather than highlighting how it impacted on your 'thinking and belief system', apart from showing how emotional you were during the time? I think the concept is good- but you just need to relate it more to the question at hand.