First four paragraphs Forum

[thedude221]

I know it could use some work, and my comma usage (or lack thereof) leaves something to be desired but any help I could get would be much appreciated.

Twelve years ago, in a move of uncharacteristic progressivism, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill requiring all health insurance providers in the state to provide a minimum amount of coverage for patients who underwent a mastectomy or lymph node dissection. The bill’s near unanimous passage might convey the impression that its path to the governor’s desk was an easy one but this proved not to be the case. In actuality moving this legislation from mere proposal to legal reality was as arduous as building skyscrapers from sand. However, its passage was inevitable due in large part to its principal architect and my mother: V**** M*******. It would seem a cruel irony then that only a few years after the triumph of the bills passage my mother would be diagnosed with breast cancer. Her illness and eventual death have had a profound effect on who I am and what I have chosen to become.
My mother’s first bout of cancer began in my early teens. As with any protracted struggle the hardships that had initially seemed so insurmountable became common and mundane. Walking three miles to get groceries or comforting her through a drug-fueled delusion was as routine as doing homework or taking out the trash. This went on for a number of years until she finally went into remission. This healthy period proved to be short lived when on my niece’s birthday my mother stepped off her cub and felt an ominous pop. An x-ray showed that the cancer had returned and metastasized to her right hip, cracking it in the process. This made moving without the use of a wheel chair an impossibility and so the responsibility was placed upon me to escort her to all of her doctor’s appointments, PET scans, and chemotherapy treatments. There is an often-heard mantra that one does ‘battle’ with cancer but for anyone who has ever been impacted by this unforgiving disease the reality is that cancer more resembles a form of passive torture. While my mother often claimed that she was fighting her disease it became evident to me during our trips to the hospital that she was consumed by helplessness.
My mother’s condition had a great bearing on the studies that I chose to pursue in school. While I had always been interested in politics my mother’s struggle with her illness had recalibrated my focus more narrowly towards social justice. Leading up to my mother’s cancer diagnoses she had been without health insurance nearly all of her life and this fact (unsurprisingly) had a major impact on her choice to delay getting checked. The bitterness which I felt from this injustice would eventually calcify into a persistent conviction to see that this did not happen again.
Like all Americans my perceptions of what is ‘supposed’ to happen in the most trying moments of our lives are greatly influenced by movies and television. So it was of great surprise to me when I found my last moments with my mother to be quite undramatic. Our last few conversations weren’t conversations at all as at the end she had a brain tumor that prevented her from speaking. Most of what I said were really just variations on ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ that last meaningful goodbye filled with poignant dialogue escaping me all the while. When I was told on an early March morning that she had finally died I felt what could possibly be described as shock, although the feeling was far less impressive than I had expected. It might seem odd that only a few days after my mother’s death I was returning my focus to my research on cap-and-dividend legislation but the initial lack of trauma had left me we with no obvious alternative. While I had expected to be devastated, the wrecking ball of sorrow had never come. As an atheist I had always believed death to be the end but this was true to me only in the abstract. I expected that when finally faced with the death of a loved one my conviction would be shaken, as it appeared to me that if there are ‘no atheists in foxholes’ then there are no atheists in hospus waiting rooms either

[esq]

This is much too one dimensional. I understand that your mothers pain was hard on you, but I think you need to cut way back on the "poor mother, poor me," aspect of this statement and talk about what you have developed into because of it. I think that you can be more concise about your mother - one to two paragraphs at most - and then move the focus of your PS to you and your positive development. It will not only give the adcoms something that will let them see what kind of value you can add to their law school, but it will also reflect better on the experience that you had with your mother by showing that something positive came out of it. As of now, it simply looks like an attempt at pity.