I worked 7,300 night shifts at a bakery to put my daughter through college.
Not that I counted every single one. At least not at first. The number only existed because Emily figured it out one summer when she was home from school. She sat at my kitchen table with a calculator, adding up years of overnight schedules while I made dinner.
When she finally announced the total, I laughed and told her she needed a better hobby. She laughed too. Then she wrote the number on a sticky note and stuck it to the refrigerator.
7,300.
The note stayed there for nearly a year. Then her graduation day came, and for the first time in 22 years, it felt like every one of those shifts had been worth it.
I had already laid out my dress across the bed. Nothing fancy, just a navy blue dress I’d bought on sale three years earlier and saved for a special occasion.
This qualified.