Lifelong learning

When I came across my high school graduation picture, the memories flooded back. I remember being overcome with lonliness for the future, because all my friends were going off in different directions. Some went to work at the telephone company for life long careers. I did not know what my future was going to bring me, because I wanted to go to college, but my mother and father, said that girls did not go to college. It was a waste of money, since girls got married, had children and stayed home to raise the children.

The fall of my senior year, Dad died. It was a year of tremendous pain and turmoil for the whole family. My whole life had been built around making Dad proud of me, showing him I could be as good as any son. But, now, my reason for being, my reflection plate was gone. I no longer could see the love I had for him, or him for me, in the reflection of his face, and I did not know what was to become of our family. Mom was lost in the lonliness of being a widow. Frank was only 12, and maybe too young to realize how this loss would affect his growing up. Dutifully, I followed my Mom's advice and attended secretarial school the summer after graduation. It was not a happy time. Then Mom found out that to work in a Doctor's office I needed a medical secretary degree from a two year college. She relented and let me go to Lasell Jr. College with my best friend, Barbara. It was still learning to be a secretary with medical knowledge tossed in. I was not happy. It was not my goal, it was my mother's goal. Sometimes I wonder, if we ever really learn from our mistakes, do we repeat them with our children. Do we make new mistakes, because we are afraid of committing the ones our parents made? Parenting is not perfect for anyone. All we can do is hope for our children to find their niche their path in the world, with purpose.