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Cheryl Hughes: My Career As a Woman

Make It Count: There was a news story this week about a young girl who entered a national science competition.  She wants to be a marine biologist.  The prize for the winner totals $100,000.  None of this is unusual.  What is unusual is that the girl lives in a homeless shelter with her family.  Because the media focused on her and her plight, a social agency in the state where she and her family live, offered them a house.  During an interview, with her family and government officials present, the girl expressed gratitude for the generosity of others.  “This is all we really wanted,” she said, “I’ve worked so hard…we’ve all worked so hard to get here.”

As I listened to the girl speak, I watched her family standing nearby.  Her parents were small unassuming people, uncomfortable in the lime light, maybe even uncomfortable receiving a home they, themselves, had not paid for.  The daughter understood the power of the gift.  The parents understood the responsibility of the gift—the expectations that come with a gift of that magnitude.

My biological mother said the thing she remembered most about me as a child was my refusal of any gift with strings attached.  When someone would give me something, she said I would always ask, “Is it mine or do I have to give it back?”  If the answer was you have to give it back, I would refuse the gift. 

It was a trust issue.  Still is.  Do I trust the gift?  The gifts that I still have the most trouble dealing with are the gifts of sacrifice.  I was given many such gifts by my grandmother while I was a child and didn’t recognize what they were.  Molly Mattingly, raising chickens and walking miles to sell them so I could eat; Molly Mattingly dragging an old Victrola out onto the back porch so I could listen to records while the ringer washer hummed and I played at her feet; Molly Mattingly packing my clothes neatly into a cardboard box as she cried, because my father was taking me far from her. 

I still carry the weight of her and her sacrifices.  I wish I had done better with my life.  I feel like the main character in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, as he stood at the grave site of Captain Miller, the man who saved his life but was killed in the process.  Captain Miller’s last words to him were, “James…earn this.  Earn it.”

As Ryan stood over Miller’s grave, he said, “Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge.  I tried to live my life the best that I could.  I hope that was enough.  I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.”  

When my youngest daughter graduated from college, she came to me and said, “I won’t forget where I come from, and I won’t forget what you and Dad have done for me.  I will try to make you proud of me.”  She did.


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