A winning essay from our Brighter Future Scholarship contest

The first thing drug addiction stole was not my father’s money, but his laugh—a sound that, for years, had been replaced by the silence of worry and loneliness. Driven down a long path of solitude, regret, and conflict—that was my father’s journey through addiction. First born from bad decisions, conversing with the wrong people, allowing himself to succumb to the temptation of Euphoria, he went through life in and out of prison, accumulating to having several children, and living a life of constant torment and relentless work. When I first got to know him on a deeper level, I was able to see how smart a person he actually was, but just one who let it go to waste. Had he not been in my life when he was, I know I would have turned out very differently; I wouldn’t be as smart, as decisive, or in the place that I am now.

Throughout my life, my father had been in and out of prison, the very last time being for 5 years, and he missed a decent amount of my childhood. Before he went in for 5 years, he impacted my life in a way that I’d never forget and would always be grateful for. Being able to recognize his mistakes in life and where he messed up is one of his greatest traits and assets; from this, he wanted to make sure that I didn’t follow his path of becoming a “bum,” as he would call himself. Every day, he would have me wake up early, get ready for the day, work out, shower, and then do extra schoolwork. He would have me do a plethora of math problems, write down words hundreds of times until I could spell them correctly, and use them in a sentence. As his motto goes in our household, “You’ll either be smart and strong, or smart and scrawny”; he’d always put working out second, and always have me ensure that my work is done perfectly and efficiently. His determination for me to have a better life than what he did and went through allowed me to gain an advantage over others, giving me the ability to comprehend work quickly and be able to think about multiple scenarios and outcomes as to how something would turn out.

After he went to prison, without him there, I wasn’t able to stay as strict on my tasks and my strive towards success and working towards my body goals. I stopped working out as frequently, I loosened up on my studies, allowing myself to miss some homework assignments and turning them in late; I lost what I used as motivation to achieve better and better myself. Throughout the years of his being gone, I allowed myself to just let go. I became more chubby, weaker, and most definitely would’ve been smarter than I am now if I had stuck to studying every day as he had me doing. With his being in my life, it’s allowed me to open up my perspective on others and the type of situations they may be in. I’ve seen firsthand how people are affected by addiction, maybe not to extreme extents, but enough to be able to be grateful for what I have, who I’ve had in my life, and that I’ve never really struggled like others have.

The experience of watching my father and seeing the impact of addiction firsthand has solidified my decision to pursue my career in Aerospace engineering. This scholarship would not only lessen my parents’ financial burden but would directly enable me to gain the education necessary to better the lives of the people around me, including my own, turning a family hardship into a professional calling.

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