The Oxford English Dictionary defines a challenge as, “A task or situation that tests someone’s abilities”. However, I like to see challenges through the eyes of a sailor. I believe that a challenge is a change in the wind that as a sailor leaves you with two paths to take; you can adjust your sails, or sink fighting against the wind, an adversary which will never stop changing. If there is anything that I have taken away from my challenges is that there is always something to take away; a lesson. When my dad left when I was 10, I learned that you are never too young to become the man of the house. It's a job that encourages independence, and from which you learn from the mistakes you make along the way, and that nobody is perfect, especially not a 10 year old. During the Pandemic, I had to go through two different leg surgeries caused by a disease named “Legg Perthes”. From those three months confined to my bed, I learned the meaning of patience. I learned that everyday is a process, and small improvements can make a big change, such as being able to walk through the school halls after moving on a wheelchair, on crutches, and even a walking cane. When my grandfather died, I learned to live in honor of those who had faith in you. His death motivated me to honor his morals and his wishes by pursuing a high school and an associate's degree at Clint Early College Academy. When my brother died, I learned that even the strongest people can break down, which is why it's always important to have friends, and people who will show you the light at the end of the tunnel. In December 2024, I received my associates degree from El Paso Community College, and from that 3 year journey, I learned that there are challenges in life, harder than adjusting your sail to go with the wind. You don't get to choose what battles you want to fight, but you do get to choose how you react to whatever challenges come your way. I decided to take something important from every fall that came my way and use it as the foundations of the person I am today. Whoever I become, whatever I am to give, it is all a product of the challenges I have conquered and what I have learned through these experiences.

I chose to be a nurse because I have experienced the best and the worst scenarios in a hospital. As a kid with Legg Perthes, a disease that affected my leg growth, I learned how to walk with crutches as a six-year-old and eventually how to properly walk after 2 surgeries during the COVID pandemic. From that experience, I took away a feeling of accomplishment after finally getting over a disease that had tormented me for almost 7 years, a sense of satisfaction after all the hard work and effort made by me, the nurses and therapists who were patient, and caring enough to motivate me into walking again. In the summer of 2024, I lost my brother to a deep vein thrombosis after a cervical surgery gone wrong. I learned that even in the worst moments, it is important to have support, even coming from a doctor or nurse whom you don't know well. My experiences as a child with an uncommon disease, and as the brother of a diseased child with Down Syndrome are engraved in my memory, and I want to use my experiences as teachings that will help me give back to my community, and guide me through the nursing program. I currently like to give back to my community based on what I have experienced, and what I have learned from such experiences. Throughout my high school journey, I volunteered to supervise and provide care for children diagnosed with autism as a member of the Autism Awareness Club. Being the brother of a child with Down Syndrome, I used what I had learned from my brother, and his therapies as tools to teach my peers how to connect with kids with disabilities and how to provide them with quality care. I was able to share and teach my skills to my peers, and as one, we were able to organize events that would raise awareness for children with Autism, and provide a safe, and positive environment, for parents, and children alike. I choose to be a nurse because I have experienced the best and the worst scenarios in a hospital setting, and I have taken one key idea from these experiences. There are people having the best day of their lives, their worst, the first, or even the last day of their lives. As a nurse, I want to be able to be with these people in those key moments, both good and bad, learn something different every day from those experiences, and provide the best care I possibly can, saving one life at a time.

My mom says that God always chooses his strongest fighters for his finest battles, but sometimes I think he mistook me for his "Rocky Balboa". Ever since I can remember, I have been sucker punched by life with different challenges, bumps in the road and whatnot. My life has been anything but easy, but that doesn't mean I won't explain how I got all my bruises. To start, I was born as an American with immigrant parents, who fought to pursue the "American Dream" to open a door of opportunities for me, and not a life of "vagos", as my mom says. The second thing you should know about me is that I am the oldest of 3 siblings: an energetic sister, and a little brother with Down Syndrome. Since I was 3 years old, I have been there for every fit of rage, every speech therapy, every surgery, and every time he has pushed me aside for trying to be a parental figure for him, and every time I felt frustrated on him, my mom never failed to remind me that he was "Un Angel De Dios", or an Angel of God. To add to a long history of disabilities in my family, when I was 7 years old, I was diagnosed with a rare disease named, "Legg Calve Perthes Disease", which made one of my legs shorter than the other. This meant that while other kids got to ride bikes and play soccer, I spent time on a bench and using crutches until I turned 8. It got worse when I hit my "growth spurt" since I had to get one hip surgery in 2020, and a kneecap surgery in 2021, which led to me using a walker way before my grandma. Of course, this can't be a Mexican childhood story without some family drama, which leads to my next trauma. When I was 10, my dad left home for Mexico, leaving my mom with bills to pay, 3 young children, and a beat-up Nissan Tsuru. It was heartbreaking to see my mom cry every night worrying about how to make it by, while my dad couldn't even bother to send money to pay for gas. I was significantly affected by his absence because I was left with no one to teach me how to drive, how to shave, or how to catch a single ball. It got worse when everyone around me expected me to step up and become the man of the house and fix my family's problems. All of these events left me bruises that will forever mark my childhood and that not even Vaporub could cure, and for all these events, I want to say, "Thank You, God". Sure, I faced countless obstacles in life, and there were times in which I felt like giving up, but these events opened my eyes to a very important thing in life. They opened my eyes to the sacrifices my mother made just to put food on the table, and as a result, engraved a valuable word in my mind that I will continue to remember and pass on to my children: resilience. She taught me to be resilient through having patience with my brother's disability, and resilience in the face of bravery towards my disability and surgeries. She taught me resilience by showing forgiveness toward my father and has inspired me to become a better man. I may have not inherited money from her, but I did inherit her own morals, and that to me is worth more than anything.