With graduation rapidly approaching I am anxious about the future. I find myself constantly second guessing my skill set and am envious of the others who are succeeding around me. However, I am often reminded of the success story of my parents and how resilient they were.
In the year 2000, my Father made the decision to pursue a graduate program in the United States after his Landscaping business in Dublin, Ireland had steadily declined. My parents then moved to the state of Massachusetts where my Father pursued a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Massachusetts.
During the four years it took for my Father to earn his masters he worked as part-time as a nightly bus driver. My mother earned a job as a pre-school temp so she could be close with children. With their combined salaries they were making $450 a week and struggled to make payments. At the age of 40, my Father was just starting over.
When my Father graduated college, he received a job as an assistant landscape architect for Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. After two good years of working in the park, my Father was let go because of budget cuts. Clearly devastated he was under immense pressure to find a new job. My Father refused to feel broken and accepted a new position working for the New York City Parks Department six months later.
For the last ten years, he has climbed his way through the ranks and has worked in the same building for the last eleven years. Even after all the failure in his life I never saw my Father defeated. He was focused and relentless, never losing sight of his goal.
My Mother never had the chance to pursue a career; always putting her family first. When we moved to Brooklyn, my mother struggled to find her calling. My mother went back to school, got an Associates Degree in Education and substituted at various middle schools and high schools. After three years of teaching experience, she earned a full-time position but worked at one of the worst-rated public middle schools in Brooklyn.
For the next two years, my mother taught some of the worst kids in Brooklyn. These kids were not at school to learn they were in the building to keep them off the streets. Textbooks were shredded and pencils were used as weapons. The way she described the school was like she worked at a juvenile detention center. My mother could no longer take the immense pressure and verbal abuse she endured from prepubescent students. She herself found unemployed at the age of 55.
My Mother re-invented herself. My supportive father helped her get a seasonal, six-month position working as a gardener for the NYC parks. Not once did I hear my mother complain about the physical demand of her job. She always came home tired but often talked just how lucky she felt. After a six-month hiatus of unemployment, my mother applied for the same position, only now it was full time.
As a horticulture major, this is the work she had always wanted to do. A year later she was promoted to a Gardener-2 position. Her new role included planting, weeding and maintaining several gardens in a Queens, New York park. She had found her inner youth.
In her third year at the parks, she was promoted to Gardener-1 and was in charge of small staff at a two-acre park in Stuyvesant, Manhattan. In just her third year as a full-time gardener, my Mother was promoted again. After taking several landscaping and gardening tests, she was promoted to Parks Supervisor at the age of 60. After 20 years of financial struggle, my mother received a 40 percent increase in pay.
Today, my parents are still in their same roles. In my short 21 years, they have shown me nothing but dedication, resilience and preservation. My Dad received his Master’s degree at the age of 44 and has been an Associate Landscape Architect for the last 11 years. At the age of 60, my Mother has been at her new job for 8-months and is in charge of supervising 17 park locations in Rockaway, Queens.
No matter how many how many times you fail, pursue what you love. Even after years of bad luck and tough circumstances my parents never gave up. They have been a true inspiration in my life and has shown me that life after 50 can only get better.
