Graduating at Forty-Five

I dropped out of college at nineteen to work and help my family. I always meant to go back. Life kept getting in the way. Two kids, a full-time job, a mortgage.

At thirty-nine, I enrolled in night classes at the state university. One class at a time. I did homework at the kitchen table after the kids went to bed. I wrote papers on my lunch break. I studied for exams in the car while waiting for soccer practice to end.

It took six years. This June, at forty-five, I walked across the stage in a black cap and gown and got my bachelor's degree in business.

My kids, who are fourteen and seventeen now, screamed so loud that the dean laughed into the microphone. My mother, who'd cleaned houses so I could go to school the first time, sat in the front row crying into a handkerchief. My husband held up a sign that said "FINALLY!" in giant letters.

At the reception, my daughter hugged me and whispered, "You make me want to do hard things." That was worth every late night.