I'm feeling all sorts of emotions: excitement, melancholy, elation, poignant, pride, etcetera. You see, I have been on this journey since 2014. I did not plan to come this far with my travails in higher education. I merely wanted to fulfill a promise to my late Mom before she passed away. Mom always thought I had put my life (and higher education) on hold to help her out, which was not true at all. I wanted to help her out. I wanted to help her buy her dream home. I wanted to help her do many of those things she longed to do; "antes de que la vida se acabe"("before life is over") as she would often say. Everything I ever did for her, she was always right there with me - working hard and making things doable and easier. She taught me how to work hard and achieve success! All those times I was doing things for Mom, I was not being selfless, I was merely paying her back for having always had my back. Regardless of miles of separation, when I married the first time and moved to San Antonio or the many years that my various careers called for me to travel extensively, I always thought about Mom and how much I admired her. I always sought her out when it felt like life kept kicking me down; she didn't feel compelled to tell me what to do, just hearing her voice made things better, somehow. Even when I had others in my life who had become "motherly" figures to me, I never felt comfortable calling them "Mom." That term of endearment had always belonged to Mom and only to Mom - and it always will. Thinking back all those years to when Dad died of lung cancer and my final two years of high school were pretty much shattered, I stand firm that I was able to make it through because of things my Mom, directly or indirectly, taught me.
