Too Old to What...?

I am always inspired by stories of people who move out of their comfort zone and begin new careers, even if some would consider them "too old." That's why Dave's mother inspired me so much. Dave, one of my colleagues when I was teaching in an adult high school, casually mentioned that his mother had gone back to school to begin a new career in her 60's. She had decided to become a nurse (like one of her daughters) and graduated as an RN at the age of 65!

I just have to meet your mother! I told Dave, so he arranged it. Talking to her, I discovered that nursing was not her first career. After raising her family, she had worked in real estate and acting. When I met her she still had an agent in Montreal who called her whenever an "older woman" was needed in the background of a scene. There is a big demand for older women, she said. At another stage of life, she had spent months at a time volunteering at an orphanage in Central America, sometimes bringing her teenage children with her so they could experience what poverty was. Though she no longer volunteered at the orphanage, she continued to actively fund-raise for them.

Dave's mom graduated from nursing at a time when Ontario was experiencing cutbacks in hospitals - so she headed south to look for work. She worked for several years as a nurse in a seniors' residence in South Carolina. A few years later, when jobs again opened up here, she returned to Ottawa working as a visiting nurse. Her only regret, she said, was that Britain had mandatory retirement at age 65 - she would have liked to go there to work for a while.

I met other inspiring women when I was a teacher of immigrants and refugees, all trying to rebuild their lives in Canada. One student, a refugee from Somalia, was a mother in her late 30s. Asha's husband had been killed in the war, so she left the country with her children and eventually came to Canada. She completed her high school at our adult program, then applied to university. I wondered how she would manage, a single mother of teenagers, in this stressful study environment.

I can only study part-time, she told me one day, when she dropped in at our school. There is so much homework and reading - and I have the kids to look after.

Your children must be proud of you, I told her.

Proud? No, they tell me I'm too old to be in school - that I should stay home, enjoy my life and watch TV. They're embarrassed that I'm still a student. But I'm not going to give up.

A few years later, I saw Asha standing in a grocery store line-up ahead of me.

What are you doing these days? I asked her.

I finished my Masters in Social Work Degree, and now I'm a social worker in a center for immigrant women, she replied.

She did it! Dreams can come true - if we don't defeat ourselves by saying we're too old to try.