The Graduation

On Saturday, July 30th, my mom flew to Chicago to walk across the stage for the first time to receive her BSN degree.  I'm not exactly sure when this journey started for her, but I am so proud of her for seeing the end of this chapter as she prepares to begin a new one in a few months to obtain her masters degree.

I'm not only excited of this accomplishment because she is my mom, but because that also means that I have also technically graduated with her. We all (should) know that when a parent says they are going back to school, it means that their children are going with them. I will never forget the late nights spent year-round transferring my mom's essays from her notebook to a Word document because for some reason people believe that because I am an English major, I am also a fast-typer amongst other ridiculous things. Or teaching myself Statistics (again, I am an English major) while trying to survive my own 15-credit course load. But the ending result is all that matters. Seeing the glow on my moms face as a College Graduate is truly satisfying for us all. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't.

A few weeks before, she told me that she was no longer attending her graduation because she thought it would be too late to get a ticket. I walked into her room one day to see her cap and gown tucked away under a pile of folded clothes, and was heartbroken to learn that she wasn't going to have a chance to wear it. After some convincing though, she decided to book her flight just days before her graduation. Since the family couldn't make it out there together, we celebrated it this weekend at Grace's, aka, one of those restaurants that cooks in front of you.

My mom's graduation is a reflection of how perfect God's timing is. When I graduated high school, I assumed college comes right after, and it will continue until I acquire all the degrees I aim for. Yet some people go through years of school and are still unsure of what they want to do in life. In my mom's situation, life happened, but this gave her time to figure out what God's Will is for her life and execute it with the perfect tools (her kids, jk) needed to do so. To other's it may have seemed like forever but with God, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day with God (2 Peter 3:8.) Once you're in God, it's never too late to go after what He has called you to do.