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Emily W's Story Emily W talks to Emily L about how the feminist movement has shaped her growing up and how the culture of women's liberation influenced her ideologies and life. Scroll to Listen Emily W's Story 00:00 / 04:39 The feminist movement which was then mostly called Women's liberation movement was a major civil rights movement when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies. In high school I started paying attention to national leaders like Gloria Steinem in particular, who had started Miss Magazine which was kind of the first thing that was called a women's magazine that wasn't about housekeeping and cooking and among many other things she said that women needed to recognize and fight for the right for recognition and equality, the idea that women were equal. It seems like such common sense, but it wasn't people didn't always act as if that was common sense. In a lot of ways I felt that my whole life, but especially when I went to college I went to a women's college, Wilson college in Pennsylvania and I learned academically some of the things that I was picking up from the culture from women's liberation, things about, you know women have always been pioneers, but our history has been often hidden either accidentally or on purpose. Certain women have always defied the norms and excelled but they have not always been celebrated. Just that there were a lot of hidden stories of women, both individual and national. So feminism made me question a lot of the norms that I've grown up with. I certainly was never told as a kid that I wasn't equal to a man. I was always told well you can do whatever you want to do. But the culture saw until I grew up with these sort of Unthinking things around the T. V. Ads magazines. And that in my hometown was the college that my mom went to which was this women's college. It turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done in my life. When I got there I realized-- I mean it's sort of like my intellectual life took off. There were certainly efforts made by most of the professors to bring women's history or whatever into the curriculum. So in some way I definitely got more academic knowledge than I might have been at another school. But mainly it was just being around all women and when women have all the opportunities women take all the roles. So it was nobody saying you can do this. It was just if you wanted to do it you did it. And so it wasn't political at all. It was just like learning by doing oh you can do anything, you really can do anything. The baseline assumptions have changed considerably and it's much more than the norm for women to have a choice of how they lived their lives. That's kind of the bedrock change. So I think the biggest change probably is that the assumption of inferiority since it and it wasn't all that women couldn't do as good a job at things but there was always the assumption that you probably didn't even want to give women a chance in the workplace or anything serious because they would get married and or have kids and then leave, and so therefore you really needed to give men the opportunities that we're serious. And I don't think that happens as much. There's still some of it, but I don't think nearly as much overall about feminism, it's certainly not a big hot topic today and the way that it was when I was growing up, but I think although there's so much more to be done, it's okay that it's not a hot topic because it doesn't need to be in quite the same way that second wave feminism, which is the era that I grew up, made some progress and therefore feminism for a lot of people could be put on the back burner because men and women and people of other genders just sort of take it far more likely to take it for granted that, of course everybody has self determination. So I don't personally take any credit for that, but I think my generation as a whole, and the generation just before me, um, can take some some credit for kicking up a lot of fuss and making things happen.

< Back Owen's Story, 2024 00:00 / 04:48 How has life been different than what you'd imagine? Well, I guess starting back from when I graduated college, I thought when I was in college, I said, you know, I get married, have a job, have a bunch of kids, live in a house, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, that eventually happened. But one thing that didn't happen that I really wanted to have happen was that I have three brothers, and I was hoping that, you know, we all live in the same area that, you know, maybe once a month, we get together for lunch, discuss how our parents are doing, you know, talk about the future, how you know, just sort of like a, you know, bunch of guys getting together and, you know, having a good time. And that never happened, for various reasons. And it was it was a big disappointment because, you know, these are, you know, three guys that I grew up with and spent a lot of time with and, you know, was looking forward to the future, them being part of the future. And, you know, as it turned out, they were not, a significant part of the future. I've had various relationships with different brothers at different times. But, short of going to funerals together, you know, there is very little of, spending time together on a regular basis. And, you know, there are lots of reasons for it. You know? Other brothers had children. You know, one moved away. You know, there are just all sorts of things that happened, but it just didn't work out. So, it was a it was a great disappointment for me. As for, you know, the other things, you know, I thought I'd get married and stay married forever because that's, you know, how I experienced life when I was growing up. You know, my parents got married and they stayed married until they died. And, you know, so I expected that. And it turned out I ended up getting divorced. And, you know, that was sort of a surprise for me, but there was really no choice. I've made something for me to continue having a decent life. That had to happen. What else? You know, I wanted to have a bunch of kids, but I ended up only having one. And, you know, that was a disappointment for me. And, basically, my relationship with my wife did not permit us to have more than one child. So, you know, that didn't work out. So, there's a bunch of things that that I had imagined would be a certain way in my life and then and weren't that way. You know, I would spend my life in one place and, you know, retire and, you know, do whatever old people do when they retire, which I haven't figured out yet, but I'm still trying to work that one out. So, you know, that was not, as I had expected my life to be. You know, that that that's part of it. It doesn't mean that that since that didn't work out as I expected, it doesn't mean that what I ended up with was bad. It's just not what I had expected to be. I guess looking back at it now, now that you're older, now that these things has happened in your life, I guess, like, do you accept it now? Like, are you more okay with it now than before? Well, there there's some things I am and some things I'm not. You know, I got married a second time. I got another kid. So, I have two kids now. So, you know, that's helped. With my brothers, you know, I have one brother I talk to. I have one brother we have I have no communication with, and I have another brother who we have a very tentative email relationship with. So, you know, I'm not happy about that, but it's it is what it is. And, you know, one of the things I didn't mention was I always wanted to have grandchildren. Right? I now have three grandchildren. It's great. I love it. I spend as much time as I can with them, and it's as much fun or more fun than I thought it was gonna be. And I really, really enjoy, even more than I thought I would. And I think in part two I always enjoyed being with my grandparents, and it was just it was a a special thing. And, I'm hoping that my grandkids have that same experience and take it with them through. Previous Next

Kathleen describes her path to becoming a speech pathologist. She describes her experience growing up with her younger sister Margaret Mary who was born with cerebral palsy. As a child she tried to find ways to help her sister learn to speak. Later, she took her first speech pathology course in college, and went on to work in a private practice and at an elementary school. Kathleen Becker's Story Kathleen describes her path to becoming a speech pathologist. She describes her experience growing up with her younger sister Margaret Mary who was born with cerebral palsy. As a child she tried to find ways to help her sister learn to speak. Later, she took her first speech pathology course in college, and went on to work in a private practice and at an elementary school. Kathleen Becker's Story 00:00 / 04:49 I feel lucky in the way I found speech and language pathology, because I certainly didn't know anything about it when I was growing up. But how I got into it started with my sister. And when she was born, she sort of changed our family because she was born very, very disabled. She had very severe Cerebral Palsy. And there were no services available for people with disabilities then unless you were paying for it privately. And our family was working class and they had seven kids and they really didn't have any money. And it really changed my family. I mean, my mother became very depressed and my father started drinking more than he had even been drinking before. And it was devastating to the family. And so first being raised Catholic and being very fervent, I would sprinkle holy water on her. I would pray to God all the time. I would make deals with God. That if like, he would get one of her legs working, it would be okay if one of my legs didn't work. She was very, very disabled. She never learned how to walk or talk or could feed herself. She was basically like an infant. So I set about trying to teach my sister how to talk. And one day I had gotten her propped up in such a way and I had practiced enough with her that I told her that I was gonna call my mother in. And that when Mom came in, that then I wanted her to say ‘hi’, which is what I had taught her to say. And my mom walked in the room and now you're thinking like my mom's kind of depressed already to begin with. And she walks in the room and I say to her, I say to Margaret, say ‘hi’ to mom. And Margaret does. She says, ‘ah-hi’, which is how you say hi when you inhale. And I thought it was really cool that I had taught her how to say hi, but my mother just turned around and walked out of the room and never said anything about it. And that was pretty devastating to me because I just really didn't understand why my mom didn't think that this was really great, like, look, she can do this. My first job that I went to was in a very impoverished area called the Northeast Kingdom. And I worked there with preschoolers. And I met my first child who didn’t speak at all. And I was really confronted with the fears that I had from when I tried to teach my sister who couldn't talk at all. It's called the Northeast Kingdom. And I worked there with this boy. And he just understood everything I said to him. He should have been able to talk, but he just, anything I tried, he just looked at me and shook his head, no. He wasn't gonna do it. So one day I was like in such a panic, he came to the clinic and I just forgot everything that I learned in graduate school about how you're supposed to be a professional. And I just remembered my sister and that when I would play with her, I would just do things that she really liked the best. And so I just, I picked him up, I took him, I put him in my car and I drove to a horse stable where there was a baby horse there. And his mother had told me he liked baby animals. And when we got ready to leave the stable, he ran up to the horses and I heard him speak. I heard him say, ‘bye bye, horsey.’ And so when the next day he came into the clinic, I had gotten some new books, some Sesame Street books that I knew he liked Sesame Street. And he climbed in my lap and I, you know, I was basically, you know, he's pointing to the books and I'm like, yeah, David, I know, I know, I know you like Sesame Street, but it was so much fun with you at the stable yesterday. And I heard you talk to the horses. I heard you say bye-bye to the horses. So now that I know that you really can talk, I want you to tell me who this is. And he just looked at me and he said, oh, that's Ernie. And after that, he opened page after page of the book and he did have problems speaking. He sounded funny when he spoke. And it's because he had what's called the repaired cleft palate, which is a hole in the roof of your mouth, but it had been repaired when he was a baby. And so he knew that he sounded different and we would spend, you know, many months working on making his speech better. But that initial when I got to be the person who got to hear him speak first, just like I got to hear my sister speak first, that one word. Previous Next

< Back Sharon's Story Sharon shares about the influence that her hardworking, loving grandmother had on her and how this influence guided her to be the person she is today. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:08 Some of the places that we went to, as I say we have traveled around the world, and you realize when you travel that while the architecture and the historic aspects are interesting, it’s the people who make the difference. We’d always try and somehow connect with folks wherever we were and that made it especially nice. It was interesting because you can read forever about different cultures but, until you talk to the people while you are there it isn’t really illuminated, and so the people flesh out the sense you have of the culture. Previous Next

< Back David's Story, 2023 David talks about his experience with coming out during the 70s and 80s to his parents and how people’s perceptions of what it means to be gay was different then compared to today. He also talks about what it was like to finally be able to marry his partner Todd and what that meant to him. 00:00 / 03:06 Well, when I was a teenager I knew that I felt differently. But um, back in the um late 60s or late 70s there was really no place to go for information and stuff. So I had really no one that I could talk with or um, and you know you couldn’t go to the library and get a book or anything. It was, it was hard because its not like now where you know there’s social media. There’s just so much on television or movies or whatever. And, um I told myself that I was bisexual for a while and this sounds really horrible to say and I don’t mean it that way but I was telling myself that I was at least half normal but I was kidding myself cause I wasn’t. When I was in college, I finally accepted that I was gay. And that was when I decided to you know come out to my parents and I did it by letter. Which I guess some people would say is very cowardice. They were like typical republicans. Upstate New York. It’s not like Republicans now. But I knew that they would freak out and be crying and stuff like that. And I didn’t want to be there to have to deal with that because I want them to be able to have their honest reactions on their own. And I got a phone call from my parents and they said that they would always love me no matter what. They didn’t understand because back then nobody talked about it. That was kind of an important thing cause I know it still happens now, but back then I had a lot of friends that were disowned by their families and stuff like that, so. It was a worry. I moved here with my partner at the time and from Idaho and had never been here before. The reason we came here was because we read about the five colleges and we figured well that should at least help to make the area somewhat more progressive. And we found at that point, we’re talking 1977, that it was to a point but there was still the old you know bastions of conservatives and everything. I met my now husband in 1983 and we got married in 2006, so um and it was funny because that was I think a year or so after marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. And um, my mother and Todd’s mother were here to give us away and I was so glad that we did it then because my mom passed away the Christmas of that year. It was interesting how being married does make a difference. It makes the relationship more legitimate. It was very, I thought it was more empowering than I knew it would be before. Previous Next

< Back Emily's Story Softball was more than just a game for me. It became an outlet that allowed me to stay connected with my family and form new relationships after my parents’ divorce. It was a thread that held me close to everyone during a time of change. The field became more than just a place to play; it was where I found connection, comfort, and continuity. This story is about family, relationships, and all the moments that happened between innings. 00:00 / 04:33 Previous Next

Sofie talks about her experience being diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 12 and how it affected her and her family. She discusses how it inspired her to pursue her future career and the importance of empathy in the medical field. Sofie's Story Sofie talks about her experience being diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 12 and how it affected her and her family. She discusses how it inspired her to pursue her future career and the importance of empathy in the medical field. Scroll to listen Sofie's Story 00:00 / 03:25 So even at a young age, I think that I have overcome a lot in my life. What comes to mind for me is my struggle with being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In the 6th grade when I was 11 years old I was diagnosed with diabetes. And, it's kind of just become my new normal but that does not take away from the fact that it's a very hard thing to deal with. Not only did it affect me, it affected my family. We kind of had to learn how to take care of my body because I did not have full control over it anymore. We had to learn these calculations to eat and I had to learn how to test my blood sugar and take shots every day. Eating wasn’t normal for me anymore I had to take an insulin shot to eat. But most of all, I think that it's taught me to be empathetic and to be more curious about the human body which is why I want to go into nursing school. But I think that knowing about a health issue such as diabetes firsthand, really really translates into your career. So my endocrinologist, which is my diabetes doctor, is a type 1 diabetic herself and it’s had such a huge impact on my life because not only does she have empathy for me and can, you know, understand my struggles but she relates firsthand because they are struggles that she’s gone through every day of her life. I want to have that impact on my patients, I want them to see me, and see me being successful and healthy and say to them you know you can do it I know that in the moment it doesn’t feel like you are going to get through this but you are. And that's another thing that you know as a nurse you have to be aware of people’s circumstances and do those little things for other people like you know, it's not just about treating them it's about making them feel that comfort that you know they’re cared about and they’re loved. And that's something that my parents both taught me and it's something that I think you know they definitely had a huge impact on my choice to become a nurse for sure. So I think that just because I’m young, I don’t think there’s an age on wisdom. I don’t think that wisdom has any age I think that I’ve been able to become a lot wiser because of my experiences. I think that you know, being a young person that has overcome a lot of health issues, it’s has taught me to be thankful for all of the little things. I want other people to be able to feel that as well. I think that even though again I’m young, this has totally shaped me into the person I am today in every single way and I think that being a young voice for other diabetics or other people in public health has allowed me to share personal experiences with my classmates, with my professors and its allowed me to have this voice that other people don’t necessarily have. I also think it's important to show people like that if we view our struggles as growing experiences, learning experiences, they can open up so much opportunity. And I’ve learned a lot about myself, about public health, and about everything just because of diabetes and I’m super thankful for that. So that’s why I feel that it's important to share my story.

< Back Barbara L's Story Barbara discusses the important friendships that she has maintained in her life, and how over a lifetime of working in film and theatre, she has maintained these relationships while also achieving her dreams of working on set. 00:00 / 04:23 “Friendship has always been really important to me, so I’ve done what I needed to do to keep those friendships. I have 3 girlfriends from high school that I still am in touch with a lot and go away with every year for a girl’s weekend, and a girls week when we turn 40 and when we turn 50 to some place really great. So that has been a real highlight of my life, that I have these wonderful friends from high school. As I said I have a friend that I am in touch with quite a lot, she was here this year visiting, that I know since I worked in San Francisco, a very good friend that I know that was a girlfriend of one of the grips. And we are still friends even though she lives in Oakland now, and friends in New York that worked on The Outsiders, that are still very good friends, that are a couple. He worked in casting, and she was the set nurse, who eventually became a costumer. So there are those folks, but then when I would be away on location, which I was a lot, if I was working in New York it was a lot easier obviously to keep contact with my friends, when I was living in New York. I was on location a lot and there was no cell phones, no internet, no email. So, the only thing you could do is call or write letters, and I did both. I was sort of able to keep in touch with postcards, but then I would get back to town, after having been gone for maybe six months, and you know, you start calling people and you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, maybe a month, maybe six weeks till I start again, maybe it’s only going to be three weeks and I’m going to be gone again. So, by the time you set up, you call them, maybe you find out what is going on with them, you plan to get together for dinner, and poof you’re gone again. Or if they are people that are working in film, they are gone again. My friend who was in casting, he stayed in casting a long time, and if he was in the middle of casting something, the only way I would see him was if I was willing to go to a play with him or see a new comic that he was thinking about casting in something. And that would be the only way I could see him because he was basically busy from morning to night. Everyone and everything was a little bit that way, with everyone that I knew, so it was lonely at times. I would sometimes be in a different time zone, and wonder “who can I call? I’m feeling lonely.” And I had an important relationship in college, but it really wasn’t until I was forty that I had another one that was more than a sometimes thing. When you’re in town, or you’re both in town, and during a film. In some ways, it made me be my own agent, you know have a lot of my own agency because I was my most consistent companion. It was just me; I was the only one who was always around that I could rely on. And I felt independent in the world and strong. We were talking about packing earlier, but I would have a plane ticket in my purse a lot of the time, and I would be able to pack in a pretty small bag and be gone for a month because I was just so used to living out of a suitcase. And I just felt good in the world, and I felt, having made it my own way with no one else helping me, besides my white privilege that is, I was able to have gotten myself to that position and I was happy. I kind of took it for granted in a certain way that I had done it, I did not always think about how I had done that for myself, but I was happy just having to gotten to where I got. To where I could choose the films I wanted to work on, where I could expand my role and do more producing and do script supervising sometime which was really fun. Being on the set and dealing with more of the actors, the director, and the camera people, it really was like my dreams come true.” Previous Next

< Back Abby's Story Abby talks about her adventures while traveling. She talks about her experience studying abroad and traveling as a young kid and how that shaped her into the person she is. 00:00 / 04:02 Basically, growing up, traveling was a really big part of my life, one special one that I remember was when I was going into my junior year in high school, they took us to Peru for 3 weeks. For 2 of the weeks we were living on a boat on the Amazon River which was really really cool. We were kind of like helping college students who were doing their thesis or dissertations. We were basically going in and out of the Amazon Rainforest and helping them collect data. It was an awesome experience. It made me look at my life differently, it was my first time traveling without my family. But also while we were there we were able to go to a little village for the day and the villagers just showed us around their homes but we were hanging out with all the little kids and we brought them school supplies and gifts but it was just awesome to see, it was like Christmas day for them when we came they were so excited and that really put a lot of things into perspective because coming from America we just have a lot more things than other countries do, so it was just a really awesome experience and it really shows me a lot about life and how materialistic things like that doesn’t really matter. From that traveling really became my passion, I knew I loved going to new places and experiencing new cultures and seeing different cultures. So, I knew when I came to college, I was going to study abroad no matter what. I went abroad in Fall 2021, and I went to Verona, Italy. It was one of the best experiences of my life. It was my favorite semester in college so far. I was able to travel a ton, I met a lot of new people, I learned so much about myself, I grew as a person. You kind of learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable if that makes sense, you just are kind of thrown into situations that you usually wouldn’t be in and you kind of just got to figure it out. Like it's been an experience that pushed me so far out of my comfort zone, but it was amazing and so worth it. You just kind of got to learn to just go with the flow and stuff won’t always go the way you planned and that’s okay. My first trip was to Lake Como in Italy. It was one of my favorite trips on that I went on there, it was beautiful and so fun but I think what made it one of my favorite trips was the people I was with and we were just hanging out and having fun and getting to know each other because we were only 3 weeks in so it wasn’t like we knew each other super well. My last trip was to London, basically to London we were just being the biggest tourists you could be. We were doing all the touristy things, we went and saw the London Eye, we saw Great Ben, we saw the Parliament, we saw Buckingham Palace, everything that was stereotypical and touristy about London, we did it. My current job right now which I love is at our study abroad office at UMass. I basically just encourage kids to go abroad and tell them that they can do it, I know it's scary, but you got it. I am working for Teach for America when I graduate, before this year I've always known about it but never thought I'd be able to get in. Previous Next

< Back Edie's Story Edie Kirk shares stories with Elise Boehm about her mother. She starts off by talking about her family’s background and her mother growing up. She then shares a story about how her mother became a nurse and shares other stories that show why she admires her mother so much. 00:00 / 04:18 Previous Next

Savannah speaks with Dennis about her experience living and working in Washington, DC the summer after her freshman year of college. Savannah discusses her determination to experience somewhere new, and how she was able to make it happen for herself. In her story, she touches on themes of loneliness, independence, family and friendship. Savannah reminds us that while independence is a virtue, we can all use some support to get where we're going. Savannah's Story Savannah speaks with Dennis about her experience living and working in Washington, DC the summer after her freshman year of college. Savannah discusses her determination to experience somewhere new, and how she was able to make it happen for herself. In her story, she touches on themes of loneliness, independence, family and friendship. Savannah reminds us that while independence is a virtue, we can all use some support to get where we're going. Scroll to listen Savannah's Story 00:00 / 03:57 So when I was looking at colleges, UMass was just sort of what made the most sense. But I also don't think it was expecting to have, I guess, the tough year that I did. I think UMass is a very big school. And it's an easy place to sort of get lost in. And I was really used to being at home in my hometown in my community that was so familiar. And I had a good group of friends and a good kind of support system. And I kind of went from that to go into this big place that was super vast, where no one's really keeping track of you or worrying about you. And I definitely felt lonely. So at the end of that year, I kind of knew that I had to do something different with my summer, I knew that I needed something that was a little bit more of a leap for me something that was challenging and new. And so I was like, okay, great, it's time to figure out how I'm going to spend the summer. So I ended up applying to an internship program in Washington, DC and spend two months of my summer living there is a really well set up program. And I think what draw me what drew me to it was it was pulling students from across the country around the world to which was really exciting to me. And I think the concept of the program gave me a little bit of the community that I knew I needed. And so once I kind of set my sights on that, at the end of my freshman year, that gave me a little bit of vigor, a little bit of excitement that I think I needed, then it was just time to kind of decide and figure out how I was going to make that happen for myself, I knew that this was going to be a good program, but I had to, like pay for the housing, I had to pay for some of the programming fee and things like that. My next kind of step was I have to find scholarships, I learned quickly that there's money floating around universities and floating around for a lot of the things that you want to do. People just tend to not know that those scholarships, those grants, those things are there. And so they don't look for them. So I made it my goal to find this funding to get me to DC. So that's what I did. I ended up applying to so many scholarships, writing so many essays, and all these different things. So I did get there, I always remember just like sitting on the plane and like taking a breath and being like, Wow, I can't believe I can, if I pull this together, it's amazing. And so from there it was, it was a really wonderful experience. I loved DC living there gave me kind of my first taste of like, what you would maybe call adult life. But I kind of got all I think the best parts of it. I think reflecting the important parts were the social parts and getting to be somewhere new and getting to kind of fulfill the plan that I had for myself, I think maybe twofold. I think I came back with some confidence. And I definitely learned that I had the ability to kind of dictate my environment and kind of get myself out of the funk that I was in, I think was really important. I can definitely see that I've grown in that way. I definitely hold on to that determination that I had and know that it's like still in me, how are you feeling about this next transition? And what do you see is coming next. So I've definitely been pretty stressed about my next transition. I think part of it is because this is something that I never would have, I think believed my freshman year but I have such a good and rich life here at UMass and in Amherst, that I think it feels intimidating to think about moving that somewhere new and even meeting new people. I think I am so kind of comfortable where I am. So I think making that transition is a little bit scary. But I also know that I have done it before when I went to DCA essentially picked myself up and moved to a new city for a couple months. And now it's just kind of doing the same thing, but for a little longer. And so I think I'm trying to harness that sort of can do attitude that I lose a little bit sometimes. And so I kind of try to take that from my summer, and I'm trying to kind of be hopeful and positive and excited. And I think that will serve me well.

< Back Jacqueline's Story Jacqueline talks about the most important person in her life; her mom. She describes her perseverance, strength, and love for both her mother and her brother. 00:00 / 03:40 Can you tell me about the most important people in your life? Yeah, I would say definitely my mom, for obvious reasons. She's amazing. And she's definitely my biggest role model. My mom started, she went to college to be an accountant. And then she hated that, because she didn't like how accountants were very, to the point didn't have like much of a sense of humor. And she, she's such a big person. She's such a talker, so that was important to her. So then she went into health care, she went to nursing school. When I was about four, my parents got divorced me, my brother, and my mom went to go live with my uncle. And my aunt, my cousin in born, which is where we then bought our house. between in between when they got divorced, she was in the middle of nursing school, so I can't imagine how hard that was for her. So being with my living with my aunt uncle definitely made it easier for her. And we spent a lot of time with them one on one, then she started working down in P town, which is about maybe two hours from my house, maybe a little less. And she would go every day work double shifts, drive all the way home sleep and do it all over again. I don't know how she did it. And then she started teaching nursing assistants. And she loved it. She was working just as a teacher under the owner. And then the owner decided that she was going to sell the company. And my mom was devastated because she loved her job. So she ended up buying the school from her. She had the school for a while, probably like 10 years, it was definitely hard because the financial situation wasn't always constant. Because that's obviously what happens when you own your own business. And it will add everything fell on her if like one of her teachers couldn't go. So there were times where it was just her running the business. So she's definitely worked very hard. And then about three or four years ago, this nursing home agency reached out to her asking them asking her to teach all of their and all of their facilities. And she took it almost right away. She's still with the company. And that's the company that I've also worked through. I think as I'm aging, I'm becoming closer with my mom in a different way. Like we're becoming more like friends than mother and daughter even though she's always been like a friend to me and all my friends go to my mom for any problems, any advice, which I think is super important. Every year on my birthday since my birthday on Christmas Eve My mom always made sure no one could say the words Christmas Eve on my birthday. It was always Jacqueline's birthday. And she would always set up she'd had balloons and she loves cards. So she'd have like a million cards. And like just a whole setup and it was always so grand and special. And so that's every year. That's definitely something that I'm looking forward to. I would like to be as good of a mother as she has been to me. I think she's done. Such a good job raising my brother and I She's worked very hard. She hasn't had a lot of extra money or extra time or anything. So I think just making sure that when I'm older that I have the ability to take care of her like she took care of me Previous Next