Vanessa said she always liked school and she knew that she was smart, but when she
was in high school, she was dealing with depression and the loss of her brother. Her
brother’s sudden death hit her hard she said, and she eventually just didn’t go back
to school.
Almost a decade later, her situation is very different. Vanessa is happily married
and has four children, but she and her husband saw that her stepson was struggling
in school. She said, “I wanted him to see that at 27 years of age and with four children,
family responsibilities, and parents to take care of, I could go to school, too.”
They devised a plan to challenge him, which also included a challenge for Vanessa.
She would go back to school and complete her GED, and she and her husband would buy
the young man a car if he successfully finished school.
Vanessa added that going back to school wasn’t easy, but her husband was very supportive
and took on the responsibilities of the children when he came home from work so that
she could devote her time to her studies. She learned during her return to school
that she was hard on herself, but she knew that “it took hard work and dedication,
and that a negative mind would never give her a positive life.”
At one point in her quest to complete her GED, history even seemed to repeat itself,
and she almost didn’t complete her GED. Another of her brothers died suddenly, and
one week later, her father passed away. However, she made her decision to keep going
this time and told herself that she had not come this far to quit. She would succeed.
Vanessa said with a proud smile, “Taking the GED test scared me, but I did well on
it … and, yes, my stepson did complete school, and he did get a car. We both successfully
completed our challenges.”
Now, she is ready to walk the stage as she graduates with her GED diploma, and that’s
not the end of her educational journey. She said she wants to get her associate degree
in either nursing or business.