My daughters were both toddlers when I garnered up the courage to apply to nursing school. I was almost 27 when I came to the realization that I hadn’t had a job I really loved and felt challenged by since working as a candy striper, then a nurse’s aide in our local hospital during my high school years. The decision to go back to school was not only difficult because of time, money, effort, and the sheer vastness of the decision but because of the two little girls I felt I was abandoning at home. However, throughout the countless hours of studying, writing thousands of care plans and medication sheets, those little girls were there with me, front and center.

One day I spoke to a close friend and voiced my guilt about the time and energy I was spending away from them. Her answer became the rock I clung to when I needed to pull myself out of a mother’s self-reproach. She said, “Your daughters will always remember how hard you worked to achieve this thing that meant so much to you. You are giving them a gift in knowing that they can accomplish their dreams, if they are willing to work for it.”

My second daughter, who will be 22 years old in a few months, is preparing her applications for medical school this fall. In her personal statement for the applications, she mentions her memories of sitting on the floor next to my desk as I studied, looking through my anatomy books at the brightly colored pictures. She also reminisced of sitting in my lap, listening to me read animatedly to her from a nursing text. (I always had considered that activity as “two birds with one stone.”)  She decided very early the career path she would take. Now, to convince her older sister…

- Sandi Schilli

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