Never Too Late To Learn

Recently, I took a weekend off to visit my Mom. She had been fussing because I had not visited in a while so I took a break from work and made the six-hour journey by road to see her.

The weekend turned out to be very relaxing for both of us. While I was there, I saw some old family photos and some new ones on the wall. Some group of photos particularly struck me. These photos were of my mother getting her first degree.

Mom is a teacher. She always says that my father had never encouraged her in any way to move forward in her career. Sometime after my father died, she did something she had always wanted to do: she decided to go back to school and get a first degree.

My brother, sister and I were supportive of her decision. Several times, she would tell me how difficult it was for her to manage work and school, but she never once felt like giving up. After three years, she obtained her first degree with honours. She was fifty-two years old. That was in 2009.

When I stood in her sitting room and looked at a photo of her in her graduation robe, I was so proud of her. I was also inspired by her strenghth. She had braved so many challenges and difficulties. Eight hours of work in the morning and four more hours of classes in the evening, full day classes on weekends, sharing a bench with people thirty years younger than she was. Many people thought she was foolish to do what she did, they thought it was a waste of money and time, and that she will never make it. She proved them wrong. I also noticed that she was so much happier with herself for achieving this and felt she could do anything. She felt empowered.

It is never to late to persue your dream. It is never too late to do what you always wanted to do. I hope my Mom's story can be an inspiration to any woman who may think it is too late for her to follow her dream, or impossible for her to take that next step.