“Maya” by Maxuel Tavarez, 16
The heart of who I am is my dream to one day save lives, and it's something I share with anyone I connect with. Coming to America as a low-income Dominican immigrant meant that my older sister, who was of high school age, took up a job rather than continuing High School here in the States. One of the jobs she picked up was babysitting the upstairs neighbors, a pair of siblings close to my age. Whenever she went babysit, she brought me along to “help”, even though I was around the same age as the neighbors. The older sister, Maya, quickly became my best friend. We spent countless hours playing games on the Wii U while my sister watched us, earning 80 dollars a weekend: an amount of money that, although not very much, helped with groceries.
As time passed, I began to notice Maya looking increasingly fatigued. There were weekends when I went with my sister to babysit them and she wasn't up for playing anymore, staying shut away in her room. One day, I went to check on her, hoping to cheer her up and get her to come play with me. But instead, I found her crying in pain, clutching her lower back. Seeing her in pain hurt me, and when her parents arrived to take her to the hospital, I found myself crying harder than she was. It wasn’t until later that I learned she had been diagnosed with leukemia.
At the time, I was just eight years old, and I didn’t even understand what cancer was. The physical toll of her illness was devastating. My sister and I still came up to babysit and saw as Maya lost weight quickly and began to lose her hair, which left her feeling mentally and physically drained. The changes to her body made her insecure, and I saw the spark in her eyes fade. I tried to bring her grapes, her favorite fruit, but she had no appetite. I tried to ask her to play our favorite game, The Legend of Zelda, but she had no energy to hold the Wii U controller. I made the same jokes I did before her diagnosis but her laughter cried out for help. Chemotherapy made her miserable, but after a long and grueling battle, Maya eventually beat her cancer.
Experiencing the emotional and physical toll cancer took on my best friend, combined with my love for biology, sparked a passion for the medical field, particularly in cancer care. I want to dedicate my professional career to helping children like Maya, and going to college is just the first step in the staircase that leads to realizing my dream.