I crossed the stage with my three children watching

Dear Delyara, I left school at fifteen when I became pregnant. For years, education felt like a door I had closed permanently. At thirty-two, with three children and a job in a supermarket, I enrolled in an access course. I studied after bedtime, listened to lectures on the bus, and wrote essays at the kitchen table while school uniforms dried around me. I failed one module and nearly withdrew. My oldest daughter helped me revise statistics, although she was only fourteen and enjoyed being the one who understood first. Today, I graduated with a degree in social work. When my name was announced, all three children stood and shouted, “That’s our mum.” I could hear them above the applause. The certificate has my name on it, but the degree belongs partly to every quiet hour they gave me, every reheated dinner, and every time they saw me fail without letting failure become the end of the story.