A Single Mom’s Journey

A couple weeks ago, I took the time to get my hair colored/cut and got a pedicure. A big event for me that week. I planned to relax and read while the color set in my hair or during the pedicure. I have gone to the same salon off and on for a while so I know the ladies are all working moms. They all know I am a working mom, but no one there knows about my blog.

While I was getting my pedicure, I was reading Working Mom– Survival  Guide by Working Mother magazine. The guide is a great resource.

The lady who was working on my pedicure and I laughed about squeezing in time to pee, going to work being exhausted and managing the schedule. The book sparked the conversation. Then she told me that her husband died when her kids were 7 and 10 years old. I was completely taken back because I had no idea. I put the book down and we kept talking.

She lived in Vietnam twenty years ago when he died. She decided to come to America to give her children a new opportunity a few years following his death. I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing it was around the late 80s and she was a single mom, a widow.

She worked on an assembly line in Silicon Valley and when she was laid off from that job, she decided it was time for a new career. She put herself through beauty school.

Her kids are in their 20s now. Her boy is in the Marines and her girl is in college. My synopsis of her story probably does not capture the trials, the heartbreak and obstacles she faced being a working mom, in a new country and in the 80s. Before I heard her story, she told me this…

“Life can feel hard and be very difficult at times, but

you need to find the things that will make you happy from the inside and will keep you going.

It’s so important.”

I can only imagine how difficult things were for her and her family. I was in awe though over what she accomplished and how she told me the way you think about things influences what you can do. Our thoughts helps use move forward or they can hold us back. It’s up to us to decide.

I always find the journey that people experience amazing. We all have one and we are all in one now. I know so many stories are out there, too.

Sometimes when we learn about others, it puts things into perspective. That’s exactly what her story did for me.