Ice skate with your heart

79: Lia's essay

2017-2018 Common Application

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Along life I've had many setbacks but the most stressful and difficult setback would have to be the loss of my son.

When we lost him, I thought it was all my fault. That my body couldn't handle being pregnant and that really lowered my self confidence, my self worth and I thought that I had failed everyone around me.

When I knew I lost it was in front of my ice hockey team, my couch and a scout. Trauma is what could of cause it but mostly because I was weak.

It killed me. I spent weeks hiding away from my family, my Fiancé and my friends because I couldn't face them. After a bit it got a little better and everyone asked how I was doing and I'd always say getting better but no one asked how the father of my child (my fiancé) was doing. Not even myself.

People always ask how the mothers doing because supposedly it's her loss but we created him together so it's our loss and I was being selfish thinking about how I was feeling I didn't even ask how he was feeling and his feelings got the better of him.

He tried to take his life and I felt even worse because during all my sadness my partner was thinking of the worst and I vowed to myself to always make sure that the people close to me are ok before my own feelings.

We took this jump scare of life and we used it to make us stronger and to talk things through about what was wrong. He already had lots on his plate with family issues that he had to take matters into his own hands so our son was the last straw for him.

After about a month we are better than ever. Still grieving but we went to support our ice hockey team and something happened where he had to go on.

At this point I had hidden my feelings to make sure he was ok. But when their was a massive collision on the ice where he ended up hurt, I broke down.

I had already lost one person, almost lost the love of my life I was not about to lose him again. When I found out he was ok, it was a massive relief to his younger sister. Minor damage but he was fine.

These 3 events made me appreciate life so much more. To seize the moment. To make the most of everyday. That any moment you get tell everyone you love them because you can't anymore.