This photo of a beautiful young woman is my daughter Hope and I am very proud of her. There are many reasons I should be proud of her, but the particular one I want to talk about makes her, not just my wonderful daughter, but an amazing person in general.
Around six years ago, at the time she was just coming into adolescence, she had two older teen sisters who were in the middle of a rebellion that would have made the most seasoned mother cringe. It was a doozy of a time! I think I earned my gold metal mother badge for those years.
Hope, though, as she was watching what was going on in their life looked at it seriously. She said to me, "Mom, I don't want to go there." and she meant it. She began asking questions both of them and me about what was going on with them. --Not out of lack of sensitiveness, but because she was trying to understand what caused them to make the choices they were making. She began reading books about purity and dating, and began to ask question of what was right and wrong. In that time she began to formulate a plan of how she wanted to get to adulthood, and it was very different from the path her sister's had carved.
Now if I was to stop the story here, her story would not be that different from her sisters, because both of them had told me very similar things at the same age, but Hope took it further. She continued to ask questions and read to figure out her course, and there were times of tears because she felt like her life would never start. She continued to work on the steps to get to her path. She watched both her sisters while they were pregnant with her niece and nephew and was there for both births. As exciting as it was, it also hurt, because she saw their life and how interesting it looked and she felt very stuck. But she stayed her course and kept doing the things she would need to do in order to get to where she was trying to go. At the time she was planning to be a teacher.
At fifteen we visited colleges and she found her university. She choose Quincy where she is now going to school, and two years seemed so far away! But she stay her course even at the most frustrating of times. Even when she volunteered in a classroom, and discovered being a teacher really wasn't the path she wanted to take, she bucked up and adjusted the course and kept going.
At sixteen she got her first job and saved as much money as she could for college. That June she graduated a year early. Having decided she was going to get a nursing degree she went to her first college class--a CNA class and got her certification. Then worked full time at a nursing home for six months before beginning college in the fall. In all this time she wouldn't even talk to boys. There was one that really liked her, but she pretty much ignored him because she wasn't going to allow anything to distract her.
Last fall she began college at the university she had picked two years before with a scholarship that covered about half her tuition. She began to see the reward for her hard work. Everyone was cheering for her. Her sisters where so proud of her. Her grandparents and her father and I were also very proud of her.
But there was more struggle just beginning... Hope has a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. She also has very severe food allergies. Within the first few weeks we found that the cafeteria food didn't work, even as they tried to work with her. The money she had saved for college she had to use for an expense we hadn't anticipated-- her daily meals even though we had paid for her to eat at the cafeteria. At the same time being in a dorm with another person and having no privacy was another problem we weren't sure would work, but she had decided to try it. Then at the beginning of November everything hit bottom. She ended up having a panic attack and I made a midnight trip to Quincy to help her through. At this point she could have given up and come home and started college in town in January. I know she thought about it, but once more she stayed the course. With her guidance counselor, a physiologist, her dad and I, and the housing department we figured out a different living arrangement that made her feel much more comfortable. It took several weeks of working through many hoops and she still had to keep up with her classes with no change in her living arrangements. I went down every couple weeks to spend time with her and give her some comfort.
Finally, a couple weeks before the end of the semester, an apartment in the building she was living in opened up. Again I saw her reward for her faithfulness and her willing to stay the course. She also in the last two weeks felt the pressure she had had all semester lift and began trying a few new things and in that time made the beginnings of new friendships. We moved her things into the apartment then she came home for Christmas in high spirits. During the break she received her grades. She had passed all her classes with flying colors! Again she realized her hard work really did pay off.
This semester began and she was more confident. She began trying new things. Those friends she had found she spent time with and on facebook I would see her smiling face with other smiling faces. When we would talk she would be bubbly and happy and gladly tell me all about the things she was doing. I saw how she had learned not only to balance school, but now the beginnings of a social life. There had been times as a teen she had ached to have friends, but she was focused and driven by her goals. My family had wondered if she would be able to go off to college and do well. Now I saw how that drive had given her time to become who she needed to be.
During this time she met a young man from another university. This is the part that brings tears to my eyes-- good tears. She saw all the boyfriends her sisters went through, and she saw their heartbreak when it ended. She saw the pain of being rejected that the sister closest to her in age has had. She looked at their life closely and it was watching their pain that caused her to read so much about purity and dating. There were times when she really ached to have the attention they seemed to have before it would fall apart, but she had stayed back from seeking it because she believed she needed to work on her own maturity and work on her goals before she dove into any kind of relationship.
You see, more than anything, Hope wants to be married and be a mother. That is her biggest dream, but her secondary dream in to be a midwife because when she saw her sister's giving birth she discovered something about herself. She found out that she loves pregnancy, birth, mothers, and babies more than almost anything. She could have sought a relationship as a high schooler, but she choose to wait and work on her goals to get herself set up for college. She worked on having an excellent reputation. She worked on studying to get a good ACT score. All these things she did first because she doesn't just want thrill but permanence. In the process she struggled to understand other teens and felt out of place. Though she had a few friends, she always felt the odd man out. It was painful. When she began working she found a little relief because she saw a huge difference in attitude between the working world and the teenage world, but still she was the youngest person working at either place and so was still out of place. Hope still stayed the course, not veering even when it would have been easier to do so.
My girl who has watched the world around her for so long finally is getting her reward.
Yesterday she went out on her first date, and she had a blast. This young man she feels comfortable with, and he makes her laugh. They enjoy the same activities, and have the same morals and values. They talk everyday. When I last visited her she got a sheepish grin when I noticed her texting the whole time I was there.
The point I am making is that she is ready for this. She knows who she is, and she has worked through all kinds of problems that didn't have easy resolutions, and she waited. Even while her sisters' lives looked so exciting she kept plodding along keeping her objectives. And believe me, my older daughters got into some huge problems because they wanted the excitement, but she didn't let their exciting lives distract her. Now she is getting the reward that she dreamed of six years ago... It's not just the first date, but being exactly where she dreamed to be. It's not just good grades, but the excitement of learning about a new world. It's not just her two older sisters telling her how proud they are of her, but feeling proud of herself. It's the fact that she did the work and made the sacrifices to get here. That lust to have it all, she set aside and continued to work. This is what makes her an amazing person. I don't meet many people like her, especially in this society, but I am so glad I had the privilege to watch her process-- her path. I am so glad to see that there is a reward for her. Maybe the reason I write this is to tell others there is reward for those who work so hard even amongst huge obstacles and don't give up. She's made a believer out of me. Hopefully she will of you too.
This is Cat out.
No comments:
Post a Comment