After....

After:

• Plans and steps towards becoming a(n):
• Optometrist
• Helicopter Pilot
• Speech and Language Pathologist
• Physical Therapist
• ATTORNEY
• Living in a mobile home, while friends and family's regular brick and mortar homes they owned appreciated in value;
• Waking up at 5:00 A.M. to study, so that after 5:00 P.M. he could be present for his wife and three children;
• Plunging, steadily, into deeper student debt, which paid for not only tuition and books but a family of five's living expenses...
• ...and yet kept us well below the poverty line, and trying very consciously to shield this reality from our kids;
• Stressing about getting a job that first summer (which only a handful really did get);
• Doing really well! In many classes, and winning some awards;
• Stressing about getting a job that second summer (which most really did get, but Sam did not)
• Becoming Elder's Quorum President, briefly;
• Making law review, and getting published (which few did);
• Stressing about getting a job offered for after graduation, which many had lined up at the beginning of the 3rd year, and almost all had lined up by Christmas...but somehow Sam did not; which meant we'd had...
• Near crippling anxiety (and forced optimism, and silent tears, on my part) about the future for two straight years....

Sam was offered a job at the end of January, doing just about exactly what he'd hoped to professionally. 

And yesterday, he graduated. !!!!!

Sam has said doing law school, along with meeting his family's needs simultaneously, has to this point been the hardest thing he's ever done. 

I'm so proud of him. <3 div="">

This song has basically been my theme song over the years, particularly since he began law school. Hopefully you can appreciate how poignant it is, for me.