HOW Many Years did it take You to Graduate?

A family member will graduate from college tomorrow.

Her dream was to get a bachelor’s degree before she turned 60. She’s beating the deadline by five months.

I’m in awe of her perseverance, one class at a time, for 40 some years. Did I mention she has no school loans and actually has received at least one “good student” prize at graduation?

She reminds me of another friend and another example of perseverance that I’ve long admired–though it didn’t my friend quite so long.

One class at a time for years

ML lived across the street from us 31 years ago in Connecticut and her first child was born two weeks before my first child, so we were first-time moms together.

Her husband served on a ballastic missile submarine and they went out to sea for 3.5 months at a time out of Scotland in those years.

An extremely disciplined guy, the husband was more controlling as a young man than he has learned to be since . . .

During those years, he would not allow her to buy cookies, she had to make them (we make all our cookies, too, but not under orders).

So, as soon as he would disappear to catch the boat, she’d show up on my doorstep, baby in the backpack, and say, “Let’s go.”

I’d pack up my child the same way and we’d walk over to the commissary where she would indulge in a bag of Milano cookies. She usually offered me one.

It’s the small things, right?

ML was an RN, but in those days you could get such a degree without doing all the schooling required now, so she did not have a degree.  She spent the next 15 years taking one class at a time to finish.

Commemorating a graduate

When she did finally graduate from college, I wanted to commemorate the achievement and after some thought, sent her one bag of Milano cookies for every year she had been in school–with the year written on the front with a magic marker.

She told me that when she opened the box, she laughed so hard she cried.

And her devoted husband hovered nearby in puzzlement. “I’m sorry. I just don’t get it. Why is this so funny?”

🙂

Up until now, ML was the poster child for educational perseverance in my experience. By the way, she went on to medical school and is now a doctor!

I salute my relative this day and anyone else who has recognized the value of an education and has worked hard to achieve one. Enjoy a Milano cookie if you can get one!