How One Moment Marked Me Forever

Students frequently ask what they can do to enhance their applications and furnish us important additional insights about themselves. Toward this purpose, the Admission Committee presents you with four topics for consideration and reflection. Please select one of the questions below and write an essay of no more than 400 words. This is your opportunity to reveal how you think, what you believe, what you value, and what you hope to accomplish. This is your chance to let us hear your voice.
Prompt: In his novel, Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann writes: “We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.” Tell us about something you heard or experienced for the first time and how the years since have affected your perception of that moment.

Our lives are made up of thousands of moments, many mundane and forgettable, a few important and memorable. Ironically, we do not often see the significance of these important moments at first glance. Nine years ago, when I first visited my neighbor’s horse farm, I had no idea how I would view that moment today.
I experienced an unhappy year in fifth grade. Not only was I an extremely shy girl who struggled socially, but my baby sister died in March of a rare disease. My mother knew I was going through a rough time, so one July day she suggested that I walk with her up the road to the nearby horse farm.
When my mother and I arrived, we were startled by the hectic scene of running and shouting people. A horse had fallen and badly cut his leg. Amongst all the chaos, a short blonde woman came out of the barn and greeted me with a big smile. She introduced herself as Coby, the owner of the barn. “It’s pronounced like Kobe Bryant, the basketball player!” she told me.
I didn’t know who Kobe Bryant was, but I knew that this woman made me feel happy. I therefore agreed to go back the next week for my first riding lesson. Throughout the rest of the the summer, I learned how to ride and I fell in love with horses.
I continued riding at Coby’s barn all throughout my middle and high school years. By the time I was fifteen, I worked at a grocery store in order to pay for lessons and did the barn chores on weekends in exchange for extra trail rides. Whenever I felt sad or lonely, one trip to the barn put a smile on my face and warmed my heart.
Last Saturday for the first time in months, I went on a trail ride at a ranch near my college. As soon as I sat down in the saddle, the memories flooded back. One memory in particular stood out: the day I first met Coby. On that first day, I knew that Coby made me feel happy and that the horses were pretty, but over the years my perception of that moment has changed. I now look back and see it as a monumental day, the introduction of horses into my life and the beginning of a lifelong passion.