This little guy had his whole life in front of him. At the moment, he had just woken up from a nap which took a minute to recover from.... His brow was a bit furrowed, probably worried about something very important..... either what flavor of Gerber he was going to get next or already worrying about the prospect of applying for medical school. I know now that it was definitely the latter. He somehow knew back then that the process would be painful and he didn't want to face it...... Boy was it!
None of us could really anticipate what that application process would exact from him and a bit from Mom and Dad. What is a few essays after all? How many would he punch out throughout high school and college? A hundred at least....?
How could I begin to explain what I think the process was really like for Landon? I can't.... He bore the brunt. All I can say is what it felt like to me was when you have a seriously long bad nightmare, the kind that feels like you have lived an entire life in that dream, and then you wake up breathing hard, sweating with your hands clenched on the sheets of your bed, scared to believe that you might actually be safe from the sheer terror then just in case, you pinch yourself, and then you actually do wake up and it is much worse in real life!
That, is what writing 1,000 essays for medical school is like. I won't say more because I wasn't the guy writing them.... I was just observing and that is how I felt!
There is a quote:
When you feel like quitting
Think about why you started
What started out as a fairly straightforward process regressed fairly quickly into an ongoing, never-ending agonizing mechanical pounding out of blocks of text, with too many paragraphs, too many words, not always connecting, not always synching -- trying to say too many things. Sometimes squeezing meaning into fewer and fewer words as the word count consistently said "Over limit". The struggle to sych together the right level of meaning at the right place in each essay... Very difficult that felt like climbing up a staircase of disjointed steps, not knowing where your foot would land next......
Something happened along the way.... unexpected, unintended but so cool. In the many hours of listening, reading, editing, brainstorming and reflecting on his life for specific experiences that might be useful in these essays I became familiar with a whole host of things about Landon I never knew before. There were other things that I knew already, but fun to remember all over again. I came to know Landon in a way that I hadn't before and was grateful he included me in the process. Some kids can't stand to have their parents involved in their "homework" much less writing about personal experiences and feelings. Somehow, Landon genuinely leaned on us to support him which was an incredible experience. I really did so little at the end of the day, but I was overwhelmed often at what I learned. It was super great to help him find his voice to properly story tell the amazing experiences he had acquired over the years. I couldn't ignore the array of so many great choices he had made throughout his life which were often the reason why he had something meaningful to write about. The commitment to athletics, service, his faith and genuine care for others produced wonderful stories that he was now sharing, of all places, med school applications. It was like pouring over his personal diary of things that mattered the most to him. I became much more aware of what was really important to him and how carefully he wanted to portray the true meaning of these experiences. He took great care to word everything just right. It was really really special to get to know him on a deeper level in such an unexpected way.
It started with a story about Drew, who I have written about before. Andrew was a special needs kid who Landon had worked with for years. The first story he ever told on his first application and first essay began with:
"He was 30ft up in a tree and he wasn't coming down. No one else could coax him down from his perch. How in the world was I going to do anything different....."
The story goes on to describe how Landon did get him down and he did with amazing intellect and skill. Talents he honed well so early in life. I had never heard that story before. That was the beginning....
I learned a few things going through this process.... I learned he had some talents I would never have, not in a million years. I learned that he knew what those were and that they were important in his life. Mostly what I learned was that the true purpose of that mind-numbing application process might have a lot more to do with him learning about himself than any school he might get into. That was the magic of it all. I am not sure if he saw this like I did, maybe one day he might.
“A doctor should be a clown at heart, a scientist at brain and a mother at conscience.”
As we wait to see who reads those stories and ultimately decides his fate, this grateful father is content to know the contents of his sons' heart regardless of the outcome.
Landon, you are a great writer, an excellent storyteller and a most excellent human being. In a coming day, when you find yourself scrubbing up before heading into some complicated surgery, I hope Drew's story comes to you and inspires you as you go work magic again on someone else in need.
I will remember that long summer of med school essays.....
"it was the worst of times, it was the best of times...!!"
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