Nevertheless, She Persisted

July: On FamilyJuly 14By the time I was 15, a sophomore in high school—the year 2001—my mother was working as an overnight legal secretary for a law firm operating out of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. She was getting ready to head home at about 8:00 a.m. Her shift was ending, and her boss asked her to stay to work overtime—given our poor financial situation at home, she usually wouldn’t have turned down the work, but she was too tired that day. And about 46 minutes later, while she was safe and on her way home, the first tower was struck. Insanely—about three days later they had them back at work in temporary offices in another building. National and global chaos ensued—of which we are still feeling the repercussions almost 24 years later.Despite it all, she persisted with courage. Her focus was not the fact her friends and colleagues perished in those horrible attacks, or that my father was becoming increasingly absent (and belligerent when he was around), or that the US was about to enter into a 20-year-long war—no, her focus was what was in the realm of her control. The area she could have the greatest impact—raising her children as, essentially, a single mother working nights and trying to put them through schools outside her financial means to give us the hopes of a better future—and of a better life than she had.If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my mother (and I’ve learned many things), it’s that it takes courage to raise children in this world.Reflection title: Nevertheless, She PersistedCreative inspiration:  John Steinbeck, East of EdenReflection question: Who are the courageous mothers in my life? What can I learn and emulate from them?