As far as I can remember, I've always looked up to my father and always wanted to be around him. Maybe this was because he was hardly ever around. He was a heroin addict that didn't have respect for himself, so didn't have any to give others. He was in and out of jail, on and off the street. It seemed like he would never change and be their for his family. Then one day, he was sent to prison for 11 years. This day was December 22, 1988. My mother's birthday was the day before, and Christmas was three days away. Finally, he started to show a different side and began to make promises of devoting himself to the family, going to be the father his two sons desperately needed and the husband his wife had thought she married.

My mother worked the graveyard shift and came home to take my brother and I to school, then went to her part time

My mother has shielded us through many tough times. She gave everything she had to give us everything she could. The things I have learned from her, I try to apply them to my life. I have developed an appreciation for my life and everything I have because of how hard she worked for me to have it. I have been shown how to find the drive to pull you through difficult times. I also am proud of the things I have endured and am grateful of the things I learned, and therefore would never change a thing. My mother has had the most affect on the structure of me as a person. The events that she went through and took me through has defined me. The impact of these events is the reason I'm affected by them more than anything during my generation.

job while we were in school, then picked us up, went home and put food on the table. She didn't sleep much, she didn't think about her health or herself at all. She just wanted to give her two boys everything she could. She would take us on long drives to visit our father, sometimes eight hour drives just for a eight hour visit. Her health quickly deteriorated as a result. One night, when I was with my mother at work, because there wasn't someone to take care of me that night. While walking around the hospital with my mother delivering medical records, she complained about sharp pains in her stomach. After a few minutes, she couldn't handle the pain, and I did my best to carry her to the emergency room. It was a bleeding ulcer, and they had to operate immediately. The bleeding was so severe that she wouldn't have made it if she didn't work at

Some common words found in the essay are:
Defining Moments, couldn't handle, person events, events defined,
Approximate Word count = 1080
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)