My mom is 100 in heaven, and she is my hero. As a 49-year-old widow, she had to go back to work to support us. She had been a homemaker for 25 years. Her last job had been helping my dad with his law office in Mountain View, Missouri before they decided to move to California where there were more opportunities.
It wasn’t easy finding a job, so she went to the program that helps people learn job skills and asked the lady who was teaching secretarial skills what people were looking for. My mom knew that at 49 she wasn’t going to get a job because she could be the “pretty” secretary.
She was told that people were always looking for gals who knew how to operate a Mag Card 2 (the first computerized typewriter). My mom and the lady teaching the course learned how to operate the machine together.
Even with my mom having an in-demand skill, jobs were still hard to come by. She saw a position at the City of Anaheim for a temporary worker who knew the Mag Card 2, and she called her friend in HR and made sure they got her application. They hired her as a temp, and she worked hard, so she kept moving from temp job to temp job until a position was opened and she was hired on full time.
Grit is what we all need in adversity. If you are facing adversity, there is a solution. You just need the grit to do what it takes to get through the tough times. When my mom retired, she had a pension to help and many lifetime friends.
