My grandson Aiden, a high school senior from Seattle, visited this summer with his family. Aiden has always been a quiet kid, so I was delighted to chat with him one-on-one about the college application process. When I told him I’d heard he did well on the SAT tests, he said with a wry smile, “Yes, I beat my dad by 20 points, and I’ll never let him forget it.” Boom! Now we’re talking or, rather, he’s talking. He’s finding his voice, taking his stand. My main advice regarding admissions was, “Be true to yourself. Listen to your heart. And show colleges who you are.”

Aiden’s mother Lynn recently texted, asking if I’d take a look at Aiden’s personal essay for colleges. I said, “Sure!” So she sent the essay, and I was totally blown away. This shy young man who’s had to deal with hemophilia since he was a toddler and live with two type A parents and an extroverted younger brother wrote one of the finest college admissions essays I’ve ever read. That’s saying something since I worked in admissions for seven years, and I’ve learned a thing or two about writing.

Here are two excerpts from that essay:

(The opening)

“I like movement. Despite its simplicity in theory — the transfer of energy into mechanical work to move an object — there are endless applications. I can’t recall when I started sketching tanks, running around Richmond, or cruising down I-90 listening to classical music, but I do know they’ve all represented roads to curiosity, creativity, and activity in my life. Over time, I’ve learned that rarely does a trek between two points follow the same path.”

(Later in the essay Aiden reflects on driving)

“When I listen to Shostakovich’s Violin Quartet No. 8, the noise slowly gets louder as panic can be felt across the four instruments, louder and louder as an unseen threat looms, until all erupt into a united crescendo, a single moment of power and volume. When I drive, I’m able to take a break from daily life, and as the raw physical power of the engine combines with the creative power of music, I feel euphoric.”

As a proud granddad, that essay made me feel euphoric. Aiden managed to display his intelligence, self-awareness and creativity in this essay. He told a story, a fine story, about who he is and how he sees himself and his world. I guarantee you that I never wrote something like that at his age as Mr. Arp, my snooty freshman English teacher at Bowdoin College who wore horn-rimmed glasses and never let people forget that he went to Harvard, will confirm.

As I was considering whether to write a piece about Aiden’s essay for this column, Tina hauled out a piece of paper she found in a drawer. It was a copy of an email that our granddaughter Emma (now a senior at Bowdoin) had sent to us when she was eleven years old.

“Hi, Grandmother and Dee,

Here’s a poem I wrote in school. I thought you might like it.”

Love, Emma”

(And here is just the first verse of her wonderful poem, which she titled, “I Am.”)

“I am nature, loving and determined.

I wonder if the wind could be strong enough to blow me away like a dandelion seed,

and where I would land.

I hear the crackle of the leaves and the snap of the branches as I walk.

I see dew drops on a spider’s delicate palace, strung from a groaning clover leaf.

I want to spin my own web of dreams.

I am nature, loving and determined.”

Again, Emma was 11 when she wrote that poem. At her age, I thought I was hot stuff if I wrote in my diary something like, “I played in a basketball game today. I scored six points. Then I came home for dinner. And then I did a little homework. It wasn’t too bad. Then I went to bed.”

In a world rocked by chaos and upheaval, it’s so refreshing to see or hear or read something that makes your heart sing. Thanks, Aiden and Emma. You give your old Granddad hope for the future.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns at dtreadw575@aol.com.