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Eighteen-year-old Abigail Mack secured a place at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard.
This happened after her admissions essay was based on how losing her mom to cancer changed her life. She shared this heartful essay on TikTok in a series of clips, and went viral.
This Massachusetts resident spoke of the letter 's' as a constant reminder of losing her mother as "the 's' in 'parents' isn't going anywhere."
In her introduction, she wrote, "I hate the letter 's'. Of the 164,777 words with 's,' I only grapple with one."
"To condemn an entire letter because of its use .0006 per cent of the time sounds statistically absurd, but that one case changed 100 per cent of my life," Mack wrote.
She recalls that when writing her essay, the word parent would be often highlighted in blue by grammar check tools which "assumes that I should have parents, but cancer doesn't listen to edit suggestions," says Mack.
Mack says that 'S' follows her as she can't get through her day without being reminded that while her friends went out to eat dinner with their parents, she ate hers with her parent.
Mack added, "I will not claim that my situation is as unique as one in 164,777, but it is still an exception to the rule — an outlier. The world isn't meant for this special case."
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In her second clip, Mack explains how she had to take extracurricular activities to distract her from her mother's loss.
"I couldn't fill the loss that 's' left in my life, but I could at least make sure I did not have to think about it. There were so many things in my life I could not control, so I controlled what I could — my schedule." She explained.
After taking up those activities to fill up her day, she discovered that she has a passion for politics, academics and theatre. After this realisation, she began to chase a double 's' called passion.
Mack concluded her essay by saying that 's' got her moving but has not kept her going. She stressed that she does not seek sadness, so 's' must stay on the sidelines until she is ready. She says that motivation is more than enough for her.
Since being posted, the video has racked more than 19 million views and almost 50,000 comments from people admiring her writing and resilience.
Watch the clips below:
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