Help me with an ending? Forum

[kdoyon812]

Comments on the entire thing are appreciated as well, but I'm really trying to figure out how to conclude my PS...I don't know if I should wrap up where I'm at now or go onto another paragraph (what I have at the end now is not how I intend to end the statement). I'm not sure how important it is to relate the whole thing back to law school, is that expected?

I was forced into an adult role at an early age during my childhood. After my parents got divorced, my mom had to work long hours to try to make ends meet. Even with her efforts, that was not always possible. At twelve years old, I had to become a parent figure for my five year old brother. I got a job when I was fifteen, helping my mom pay for what her income and food stamps could not. I had to pay my own way through a lot of my childhood and I learned early on that for most things, from clothes to a college education, if I wanted it, I had to earn it. It all seemed difficult and unfair at the time, but as I discovered, the kids living next door at the time were dealing with much more than I was.

Part way through my freshman year of high school, I started to hear banging, screaming and crying through the walls of our duplex. I listened more closely, bringing me to the upsetting realization that my neighbors were abusing their children. I knew I had to say something, and after telling my mom what I had been hearing she called and made a report to Child Protective Services (CPS). One summer afternoon, weeks after she made the call, my mom sat me down and told me that the children had been removed from the home by CPS. I felt some sorrow knowing that my actions contributed to a family being broken up, but I took pride in knowing that reporting the abuse was the right thing to do. I knew that I contributed to getting those kids out of a terrible situation, and gave me a feeling of accomplishment.

I had the opportunity to experience some of the same feelings of accomplishment during my junior year through the XXXX program. Through this program, I completed an internship at a local social service agency in Barcelona, Spain, providing after school support services to poor immigrant children in the city. They came from Morocco, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bolivia, and Romania, and many other countries. Picking up a child from school on my first day, I was greeted by punching, spitting, and Spanish swears from a five year old boy from Morocco. After my first day I never would have guessed that my work with this boy would have ended the way that it did – in a tearful embrace between the two of us, exchanging goodbyes and good wishes. I picked him up from school every day at my internship, and I grew close with him over the time that I spent with him through our activities together. We did school work, cooked, and played sports and games together. I was even able to help him learn how to swim. I always respected the boundaries that he set between us, but I pushed them every chance that I had, eventually culminating into what I knew he so desperately needed: a friendship. I was able to leave knowing that I made a positive impact on his life, and I am proud of that.

My work in Spain allowed me to leave with the same feeling of accomplishment that I felt back in the summer of 2003. Through it I have realized how much I enjoy working with and helping children, and coming back from Spain I decided to seek out an internship at the State of XXXX Department of Health and Human Services with Child Protective Services. This internship has exposed me to the legal side of working with children and child advocacy; I have had the opportunity to talk with Assistant Attorney Generals, guardians ad litem, and other attorneys about their work in family law. Through these interactions I have learned how legal professionals can work for child advocacy and the advancement of social justice, both of which I am passionate about.

[JasonR]

I know this is not going to be what you want to read, but I feel that what I'm reading has been so heavily modified per the suggestions, good and bad, of so many posters on this forum that the easy authenticity of your original draft has been seriously diminished.

I'm also not a big fan of the transition from your socioeconomic circumstances to the discussion of the abused children. I'm not even sure if it's possible to pull that off smoothly.

[kublaikahn]

If you alter your transitions from a "feeling of accomplishment" to the knowledge of having an impact in the lives of these kids, it will flow nicely from your own hectic environment to reacting to the neighbors crisis to proactively helping the kids in Spain. It does show the independence and progression you are aiming toward. It just needs to be cleaned up.

In some ways, I agree with the above poster that you are losing some of your own voice, but I think that voice contradicted the aim of your piece. It sounded a bit like a sympathy plea. In some ways it was a bit pitiful, which does not paint you in the way you desire. Even in your edited piece, I would cut out the part about the divorce. It is enough to say your mom was struggling so you put on the yoke. Just read what you have here as if it were fresh and put your own voice back in.

Oh, conclusion. I would tie it back to the beginning. Talk about how empowering it is to get involved and be the source of relief.

[JasonR]

PM sent.