It was the fall of ‘91, or somewhere thereabouts. I was 4 and my brother 8. She was nearing her 33rd birthday. Just one year older than I am now. It was the year she began her associates degree at the local community college. She was working down the road and raising us.

I vaguely remember the old electric typewriter and various “heavy” books strewn around the trailer that we lived in at the time. Because at five years old, the only thing you know about college is that it’s where your mom sometimes goes at night. And the books are heavy.

It was the summer of ‘93. I was 6, my brother 10 and she 35 (give or take). It was the year she graduated from the community college. I vaguely remember a party in the front lawn. It was hot and I remember all the adults commenting about it, in the way only adults can. To me, summer was summer. Macrame folding chairs, picnic tables and my cousin with her “hippie friends”, dot my memories of that day. Which is saying a lot, because I really only have a few graspable memories from my early childhood.

I weave the dotted memories with the stories I’ve been told to create a decoupage of my past, creating an image in my mind of what it must have been like. Except, I don’t have many stories about this particular season of my mother’s life. She has never been one to talk much about herself. She is and always has been the keeper of everyone else.

I can clearly remember my grandmother being at the front yard celebration that day. I remember her blazer with the raised shoulder pads and I can still smell the Mary Kay on her face. She was the one who explained to my why I wasn’t attending the graduation ceremony— I would have more fun running around the park with the neighbors. She assured me with a kiss that they would be back shortly. That I remember as clear as the sky was that day.

But for the life of me I can’t remember my grandfather being there. Was he there to see his youngest child get a degree? Was he as proud as I imagine him to have been? He must have been there because he didn’t pass until September 11 of that year. A date that took my mom only a few moments to reply with. But of the year in which she started school she could not recall.

She’s just that way, never making much of what she does, what she has accomplished. So I will make much of it for her.

You see, in the midst of this scene is a single mother schlepping her children to and from baseball and ballet. A single woman who worked full time, with two young kids. She was navigating the college scene and the dating arena. She was unclogging toilets and unfreezing pipes. She was making dinner and making grades. All the while, I can scarcely remember a night that she didn’t tuck me in. In the midst of it all, she created a legacy of a bedtime blessing— a quick chat, a hug and a kiss, and just one more glass of water—that lasted through my teen and young adult years. Like I said, the keeper of everyone else.

It was the winter of ‘94 and she had just landed an office job. Good hours, decent benefits and a consistent pay. That was nearly 25 years ago.

As a young child I couldn’t possibly understand or even know what it all meant—her choice to go back to school, her commitment to finish, her newly landed job. But I knew how it felt.

I knew how it felt the day when I paid a quarter for my school lunch. I can still see myself at the end of the cafeteria line. Keenly aware at the time of everyone around me. Nervous pride in my heart and a smile that I could not contain. It didn’t occur to me, or even really matter, that 25 cents was still significantly subsidized. All I knew is that we were not in the same place we were the day before.

I know now that the pride I had in my heart that day was not so much about the money but about her. She had moved us up. One rung on this ladder we call life. She was trudging ahead.

The years passed. The shifts and the pay changed. But the job remained the same. The grind. Day in and day out for 25 years. Something virtually unheard of in my generation.

There have been deaths and births, weddings and divorces, graduations and job losses, sickness and health. Amidst it all for 25 years she has made a daily fifty minute commute into the city. She has lived a certain life there, that I know not much about. All the while being the glue to our lives outside that cubicle.

And now that chapter is ending. The hard work has paid off. Now she gets to live but one life. No longer is there the work week and the weekend. Now it’s just life.

Here’s to you mom.

You were the age I am now when you started your career journey. I can only hope that in 30 years, when I am the age you are now, I will have as much love to look back on and as much life to be proud of.

May you live that life. You’ve earned it.