At the end of the summer of 1988, as I was preparing to enter my junior year at Columbia University, while sleeping at home, a family friend woke me with the news that my mother, sleeping in the next bedroom, was not moving. Ironically, I rarely slept at home, even during the summer months, preferring an on-campus apartment at Columbia's Morningside Heights. On this particularly unique occasion while enjoying my parents' hospitality, I bore witness to my mother's final moments. Shortly thereafter, my father suffered a stroke and following six months in the Intensive Care Unit at New York Hospital and a brief stay at a hospice, he too died from what the family agreed was a broken heart. Clearly loosing one's parents is an event which all children must anticipate; however, there is little, if any, way to prepare yourself for the back-to-back loss of your parents. Death appears as another life requirement and the ways in which we adapt ultimately define the balance of our adulthood.

On August sixth of this year, my fortieth birthday, as a gift to myself and as a symbol of a new commitment to me and my family's future, I registered at Dominican University to complete what was started so long ago.

There can be little doubt that parents have the ultimate responsibility to prepare their children for adulthood. This broad educational responsibility requires a parent to be as prepared or "educated" as possible. To that end, after my son was born, completing my education could no longer be kept on life's back burner, but rather a new reality that needed to be embraced and resolved.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 837
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)