The Diploma At the Top of the Wall

I tried the college thing for about one semester.

It didn’t work for me.

At the time, that felt like a pretty big deal. It seemed like everyone else had a plan. People were going to school, choosing careers, and moving forward.

I was trying to figure out where I fit.

Then I saw an ad in the newspaper for a nursing home that would train you to become a CNA.

Everyone I knew who wanted to work in healthcare seemed to be going to school for nursing, so I thought maybe this was my way in.

I signed up, did the training, got my license, and went to work at that same nursing home.

And I loved it.

It was hard work. Physically hard. Emotionally hard. Some days were exhausting.

But I loved the residents.

There are people from that hallway I can still picture clearly all these years later.

One of them was Mrs. White.

Mrs. White was a tiny woman, and somehow she looked even smaller sitting in her wheelchair.

She had dentures that were way too big for her mouth, and she had the best laugh.

When she got really tickled, those dentures would start slipping out and her little bony hand would shake as she tried to push them back into place.

Of course, that would make me laugh.

Then she would laugh harder.

Which made the denture situation even worse.

Sometimes on my break, I would sit on the edge of her bed and listen to her tell me what was happening on whatever soap opera she was watching.

Her walls were covered with family pictures. Faces, memories, pieces of a whole life before that nursing home room.

And right up at the top was her high school diploma.

That diploma always stood out to me.

Mrs. White had left school when she was young to get married.

Then, after the age of 60, she went back and got her GED.

I remember thinking how impressive that was.

She could have easily said, “That part of my life is over.”

She could have decided she was too old.

She could have convinced herself it didn’t matter anymore.

But she didn’t.

She wanted to do it, so she did.

And there it was, hanging above all those family pictures like a reminder that her story had more than one chapter.

Looking back, I think Mrs. White taught me something long before I knew I needed to learn it.

You don’t have to follow everyone else’s timeline.

You don’t have to take the same path as everyone around you.

And you are not automatically out of chances just because life didn’t go the way you originally planned.

That job taught me some harder lessons too.

I remember residents getting dressed up on Sundays.

They would sit in the hallway waiting for their family to come visit.

And sometimes nobody came.

I watched people get sick.

I watched people go through difficult treatments.

I watched families say goodbye.

And I watched people wait for someone they loved to simply show up.

At the time, I thought I was learning how to be a CNA.

I didn’t realize I was learning about people.

I was learning that people want to be seen.

They want to know they matter.

They want somebody to remember them.

And they want the people who say they care to actually show up.

I think about that a lot now.

We make “showing up” complicated.

We think it has to mean doing something huge.

Sometimes showing up is sitting on the edge of somebody’s bed and talking about a soap opera.

Sometimes it is making the phone call.

Sometimes it is keeping your word.

Sometimes it is walking into a room when it would be easier not to.

Sometimes it is deciding, even at 60 years old, that there is still something you want for yourself.

Mrs. White probably never knew she taught me anything.

She was just living her life.

Laughing.

Fixing those dentures.

Watching her stories.

Looking at the family pictures on her wall.

And keeping that diploma right up there where she could see it.

But I still remember her.

Maybe that is part of the lesson too.

We rarely know which moments people will carry with them.

So show up.

Pay attention.

Keep your word.

Laugh when you get the chance.

And if there is something you still want to do, maybe quit worrying so much about whether you are “too late.”

Mrs. White wasn’t.

And neither is the next version of your life.