<p>Hello, I just wanted to see what you guys thought about this essay</p>
<p>I lived in a family full of grit and raw reality, punctuated by poverty. Life goes on, despite difficulty, and the only thing gained from work is strength. I remember the stories of the Dust Bowl my wrinkled grandma would tell me, her body withered from long days planting wheat in desiccated fields of red earth. When I got older, my father told me of Vietnam, having to evade gun fire, as he ran for his life. Sitting in the dining room, listening to these stories of the macabre and grisly, I felt naively exempt from fate's hammer. My life had only been mired by pruned fingers from washing too many dishes and knee scrapes from failed bicycle rides. They were painful, but not back-breaking. My father, aware of my consternation, reasoned that these stories strengthened the soul, that they filled the heart and mind with enduring life. </p>
<p>My mother's hand felt so cold as life left her veins, the long sustained beep of that damn machine signifying the inevitable end. I was quickly rushed out of the room so that the doctor could confirm that my mom was dead. I sat down on a chair in the lobby, my heart full of pain and my head full of confusion. I felt emptied and barren, just like those wheat fields on my grandparents' farm. The same emptiness returned to me four months later when I watched my father's eyes as death overtook him. I left both rooms, both parents, feeling blighted and dismembered. My source of strength was gone, causing me to spend days and months lying on a slowly exhausting bed, wondering, thinking about my changed life. I spent a year out of school, passing 16 by, wishing, hoping that my mind would settle, that the pain would stop. Finally, I saw an opportunity, the opportunity to be my father escaping those bullets, to be my grandmother bending down to harvest the last of a once fertile land. I felt the inching survival, the slow rise. I felt the grit. </p>
<p>My brother knew that I had to return to school. As my new guardian, it was his duty to push me along; the first few days were surreal. I was away from it for so long that it felt overwhelming to reemerge like this. At first, I felt jittery in the classroom. Eventually, relaxation overtook me and the old familiar routine of hustle and bustle returned. I found solace in U.S. History. Our teacher was discussing religious toleration in the late 18th century, captivating me, but boring everyone else. Heasked a question: "Why were the colonies starting to become more tolerant of different cultures?" No one seemed confident enough to answer, so I eventually raised my hand to respond. Some of the students applauded, others snored. Once the period ended, a girl from class walked up to me and askedme to tutor her. I accepted the offer, believing that it would benefit both of us. She told me to meet her in the library during lunch. Once lunch came, she found me in the library with my book open. As I was conveying to her the nuances of our country's history, I found myself making gestures with my hands, the same hands that once picked wheat or brushed aside the tropical plants in the godforsaken jungle of South East Asia. I had always been a tutor, but I now felt stronger and better equipped to teacha person history because I felt it in my veins. That feeling of grit returned as I explained concepts and showed her examples. My explanations were so gripping and so vivid to her that she told others to seek my tutelage. My time during lunch started to beeaten up by people desperate to grasp the concepts that were eluding them. In that time, I was not dwelling on my parents and their absence. I was devoting my time to these new people who needed me, pardoning me from the pain. History, devoted to understanding change and slow struggle, enveloped me as I taught them. I felt the strength of my family in me as I explained the past.</p>
<p>I burned inside when my parents died. I burned, as a Phoenix burns, into ashes of sorrow. But I knew that my family was always strong, always so full of survival and grit. The power and magnitude of that filled my soul. I now tutor at least seven students in a variety of different subjects, ranging from Biology to U.S. History to Calculus, using that strength and that power, the grit that was present in my father and my grandparents.</p>