Teen Role Models The following was written a few years ago by a 17 year-old student.   As you read, we think you'll realize why we saved this particular essay.

What's the Most Important Thing in Life?

Sitting at the white marble table, I wait for dinner and watch my grandmother. The smooth, thick smell of boiling lentils with by leaves, the sizzling splashes of vegetables tossed into hot oil spill out from the kitchen and fill my home like liquid. The gold bracelets on my grandmother's arms sing to the rhythm of her quick strokes, back and forth, back and forth, until a soft ball of dough is thin and round, ready to be cooked. She stirs cloves and cardamom into a pot of boiling rice until their flavors leak out with the steam.

Then my grandmother shuts off the stove and walks to me slowly. I begin to stand, saying to her that I will come around the counter to get my food, that she doesn't need to carry the heavy plate and hot bowl. Saying that I know walking is hard for her, that it is all right. But she puts her hand on my shoulder, and takes the bowl and plate from my hands; her smile tells me to sit down. I say thank you quietly to myself, knowing that we do not say that in my home. She turns around, and still smiling, she shakes her head and waves her small index finger at me, back and forth, back and forth, telling me not to say thank you, telling me to leave formalities like that for strangers. I remember her shaking the same finger at everyone who enters our home.

I watch my grandmother cut thin slices of almonds into a pot of boiling milk sweet with sugar, rich with saffron leaves. I remember drinking bowls of this warm milk, my favorite, when I was four feet and chubby, when my feet dangled at dinner, when my grandmother could rock me to sleep in her arms. She stirs patiently, until the milk is the right consistency, leaving a thin film on the side of the pot. My grandmother scoops four ladles into a bowl and decorates the surface with crushed cardamom. When she places the bowl in front of me, she tells me that growing older means staying young. She has not lost her patience for creativity, her attention to details, her respect for her art. And I tell her that I understand when I accept another bowl and lick my upper lip as if I am five again, as if my feet are still dangling. I will not lose the sweet taste of my childhood, I tell her. She can be sure.

I shake my head no to another piece of fresh, warm bread, with its pool of melted butter. My grandmother squints her eyes and tilts her head, just a little, asking if I am sure. I do not protest; she tosses it gently onto my plate. She knows I can eat one more. Then when my plate sits naked on the smooth white table, her eyes smile at me. A smile of peace, of satisfaction because I am full and can eat no more. She tells me then to serve others selflessly and tirelessly, to enjoy and respect the privilege of giving, of feeding, of eating. She tells me to make the happiness of others my own. Whom or what or when I am serving does not matter.

This is my culture; this is my heritage. So I eat to tell her I understand. I will carry on the tradition.

The first memories I have of my father are of the two of us sitting together on the green wooden chairs at that white marble table for dinner; or my father driving me to the bus stop in the mornings, the two of us sitting in the car waiting; and those family vacations by car, when I would listen to my father but watch the road through the glass of the windshield and feel the rhythm of the dotted yellow line shooting at me.  I remember realizing on one of those drives that they were the same activity--that listening and watching and feeling.

"What's the most important thing in life?" my father would always ask me while I sat next to him, my hands tucked into the warmth under my legs, my feet hanging helplessly. I would swing my feet a few times and answer reflexively, "To be a good human being." It was the right answer, I knew, because my father had told me it was since the very first day I could understand him. He would look straight ahead and place his hand on my knee, "Yes, that's right. Yes..." I felt his hand, looked up to his face and tried to meet his eyes, deep and sure. But I never said anything; I sat there next to him taking in the air around me and feeling immensely strong, as though my father had given me an answer.

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