Columnist Cassandra Walker
I love going to help out at our sons’ schools.
The teachers are always grateful, and the students get a kick out of seeing someone’s mom or dad in the class.
I know that I am fortunate to be able to have the availability to go during the day and assist wherever the teacher needs.
Sometimes, however, I am reminded of just how special that one-on-one time is with those children.
I was talking to another parent the other day. She is a bus driver for the area and told me how she was hoping to get more hours at work.
She explained to me that a few more hours would help her, as she is a single parent. However, she explained that by being a school bus driver she was able to have a few hours off during the day to come to the school and help out.
As we sorted through homework sheets she explained to me her lifetime dream.
“I want to get a college degree,” she said with enthusiasm.
She went on to tell me that even though she was way past the average age of a college freshman, she had just recently started back to school at the local junior college.
I listened as she told me about dropping out of high school and eventually going back to get her GED. Soon she had children and took the best job she could get, which was driving the bus.
Now that job, which did not seem like much at the time, was allowing her the flexibility to go back to school during the day time.
I was impressed with her ambition and encouraged her to keep on working toward that degree.
At that moment I had to stop and appreciate the opportunity I had as a teenager to go away to school and graduate.
Here this lady decided, even though she had let time pass by, that she was not going to let her dreams go unfulfilled.
We continued to work on our project as she smiled the rest of the day, just thinking about her future and the goals she was going after.
I smiled too.
Thanks for sharing