Finals. They are the make or break it for some people’s grades and a true test of any college student’s limit. It is not only that but also a time of stress and late nights.

I am not immune to any of this stress, as much as I wish that I were.

It was the day before my first final ( I have all five of mine in a row, so I had already been studying for six days straight to prepare) and my mom called me.

I was in the middle of a breakdown from all the stress, which did include tears, but I still answered the phone.

She could tell right away that something was wrong, and I explained to her why I was so stressed, as a lot my grades would be dependent on my finals.

I was expecting her to console me, but rather she reminded me that if she could do it then so could I and that it was my job to be a student.

When she hung up I was left sitting there thinking about what she had said. She was right, even if I did not want to admit it.

My mother has always been my idol, but sometimes I am human and I get consumed by my own life and forget what she has done for me.

When she said that if she could do it then so could I, I remembered how she had just graduated with her master’s degree from Duke to be a family nurse practitioner. I realized that if she can do that then I could survive through my finals.

My mother grew up poor in the countryside hills of Pennsylvania, and her mother discouraged her from going to college so that she could stay home and help her, but despite that and all of the obstacles against her, she decided that she wanted more than that and worked her way into college.

She paid her way through two years of nursing school, but never fully finished her degree. This hindered her from getting better jobs in the long run, but for the time being, she worked in a hospital as a nurse.

Then, once her three kids were older, she decided it was time to finish her degree. With a lot of late nights and hard work, she finished up her nursing degree at ECU.

She did not stop there though and kept striving for more, so she got into Duke's nursing program for graduate school. She did all of this with three very busy kids, working full time, and managing and playing on three tennis teams.

My mother’s determination to make a better life for herself and her family is what inspires me the most in the world. She came from so little and through hard work has reached what she wanted.

This is not the only reason that I admire her though. She is the kindest person that I have ever met. She is constantly preaching love and inclusion for all, which is so rare to find in a world filled with hate.

She also has been there for me when no one else has been and for that I am forever grateful to her.

I went through a rough patch last summer with some personal aspects of my life falling down all at once and I was more lost than I ever had been. I was broken in so many ways and when the nights were too hard for me to be alone she would come sleep with me so I knew I wasn’t alone. Yes, I was an 18-year-old girl, but I was dealing with some very real and very big issues and being alone at the time was what scared me more than anything.

The woman who holds me when I cry, loves me even when I hurt her, and inspires me to be the best that I can will always be my hero because I don’t know any one who is more deserving of it.

So, whenever I am stressed or feel that I cannot do something, I think about how I have it so much easier than her and that if she can do it, then so can I.