My mom

Well my mom pulled off the surprise of a lifetime tonight. We were having dinner over there and Lori and Jackie were there, along with Alex and I. My mom asked if my students ever try to pull anything over on me and I coolly brushed off that I am too quick and too smart to be fooled. Then she looked me in the eye with a twinkle in hers and with more pride than I've ever seen she told me she pulled one over on me. 

Slightly confused, I asked her what she was talking about and she told me she was paying off my student loans this week! Excuse me? Come again? What's that? Oh, right. Come to find out my mom, who has been retired for two years has been secretly working in the school system for an entire school year and has used the salary for nothing other than to fund an account to pay off my student loan balance of $15,000 and Marc's loans, with a similar balance. She was tickled pink and laughing and smiling that she was so sneaky to work all year, to be completely involved in a new school, and that on multiple occasions almost let the cat out of the bag, only to save herself and leave me none the wiser. Everybody knew and was so excited... Lori and Dave, my aunt, all my mom's coworkers, even her students! Talk about a labor of love! 

It was February 2008 when Alex and I were turned on to Dave Ramsey. Lori and Dave had made some incredibly wise financial choices and Alex and I found ourselves looking for that same financial peace. So we began our Total Money Makeover and with incredible enthusiasm told my mom and Jackie our plan over dinner one night. They were proud of us and thought we had a good plan in place for getting out of debt and starting our family. Well within 13 months Alex and I paid off $16,000 in credit cards and $11,000 on a car loan. We were well on our way to paying off our student loans, attacking mine first and then Alex's. We have had some extra expenses the last few months so I was starting to feel like we were about to stall in our enthusiasm for our "Debt Snowball". My mom's gift tonight just gave us all the motivation needed to attack out last debt. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and in no time at all we will be screaming into Dave Ramsey's radio waves, "We're debt free!"

To truly understand what this means to me you have to understand the immense burden these student loans have been to me. When I started college my mom was fresh off a divorce from a guy who financially and emotionally screwed us all royally. She was a single mother to three teenagers, working on a teacher's salary, receiving no child support, and I was starting college. With no money for school I ended up taking out student loans. It made me sick to take on debt, even though student loans are just a part of life for so many. My sophomore year I decided I didn't want any debt so I took out no loans, and let me tell you I have no idea how I paid bills for a year with no money. So my three remaining years I finally realized that I had no choice but to take on more loans, and upon graduation I had no money and $30,000 worth of debt. I always felt like it was something that weighed heavy on me. Like I would never get out from under these loans. It would be a $158 payment every month of my life forever. I felt like it was kind of something my dad had saddled me with that put me behind the 8-ball before I even got going. I know funding an education is usually referred to as smart debt, but any debt is a bad thing and for a while it consumed me until other debts began to pile on top of it. To make things worse my grandparents were sitting on piles of cash at the end of their lives and knowing this burden chose not to help in any way. My dad then inherited the money and with his new found wealth and self-realized power found himself once again slighting his children to buy timeshares, flip houses, fund scholarships for other college students, and blow money faster than you would believe. So here was my grandparents hard earned cash, that might as well have vanished in the wind, gone. And on my measly teacher's salary I felt helpless. I eventually realized I wasn't going to win the lottery, or a slot machine jackpot, or get a windfall from family. Through hard work and focus Alex and I made a plan and I felt like we were going to pay off the loans. They were not going to be a monthly payment for the rest of our lives. 

 Three years ago my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and fought hard for an entire year. She recovered from her cancer and is healthy. Well she was also ready for retirement and was at a school she'd been in forever, working with people whose attitudes had become toxic. She needed a break for sure, and she went off into her retirement with all the enthusiasm of a kid starting summer vacation...  that would last forever. So we bought her sudoku and crossword books to occupy her retirement, and assumed she'd travel a lot with Jackie. My mom had always worked so hard at work and at home and I was so happy when she married Jackie and he made it possible for her to retire early. But I guess that deep down inside she had a hard time being happy knowing that her kids were carrying the burden of debt. I think she also always felt a bit responsible as a parent to fund or help fund her kid's educations. So after a year to recover and rejuvenate from working for 30 years and collecting her retirement check she decided she'd put together a resume, interview at schools, and start fresh. She lived off her salary, stockpiling some cash for herself with the way her stocks were performing, and put 100% of her monthly retirement pension into an account to tell me today that she has all the money necessary for me to pay off the debt. They call it double-dipping in the schools. Collect retirement and a salary at the same time. She says she loves her school and has had the best school year of her life. She says she has had fun keeping this secret and knowing every two weeks that she was getting closer and closer to revealing this surprise to me. Oh I must mention her school is MORT!!!!!!!!!!!! If anyone knows Mort, it is about the poorest school in the county. In fact, my school has adopted this school and our PTA has fundraisers and collection drives for them all year. When you think of poor performing schools, kids from rough backgrounds, kids and parents who don't speak English, the kind of school teachers get stuck in-- that's Mort. But my mom picked it! It is not far from her house, and she has always taught in low SES schools so it's all she knows. She says there are a lot of teachers who are really great and have proudly worked hard to pull that school from an F to a C. She loves her kids and her coworkers are great. On top of that "Labor of love", my stepdad Jackie has had to deal with my mom being back at work when he was looking forward to them being retired and traveling and living like newlyweds. It has been hard on him to accept that my mom felt she had to do this, and she so enjoyed her students that she wouldn't take off any days to travel to their cabin in TN for mini-vacations and for upkeep on the cabin. I appreciate his sacrifice as much as hers. 

I don't think I can ever put into words what this means. It's probably why I've rambled on for six paragraphs. And truthfully, it's not the money. It is the sacrifice and dedication and "project" my mom worked on for no purpose other than to give us kids peace and help us reach our goals a little faster. I always told people my mom was the most selfless and giving person I have known. Today she proved me right. I am so proud to call her my mom. And tomorrow when we walk into the bank together to transfer the money to Collegiate Funding Services no words will ever be enough. I hope that when I have the opportunity to help others through sacrifice and selfless dedication I can use her example. I will pay this forward, mom, and your example will be with me forever, and the memory of this night with me always. 

Oh, by the way she paid for our wedding too, and used this job to finally pay off the last bit of the wedding from two years ago!

My mom rocks, doesn't she?!