My Single Mom Life

Mark came home from school today with his test scores from his graduation test, and some info on his graduation.

Of the 5 test areas that students needed to pass with a minimum score of 410, Mark passed each well above that minimum.
Language arts/reading - 790
Language arts/writing - 620
Mathematics - 540
Science - 540
Social studies - 680
Yay Mark!

I was worried about getting him his cap and gown for graduation, the school makes you buy them, but the school has a scholarship program that I didn't know about until today, and so they will be providing him with his cap and gown due to our financial circumstances, and because Mark has overcome a lot of hurdles these last few years in order to be able to graduate with his class.

His freshman year was 2005-2006, he had been doing great until I went in for my first spine surgery in February 2006.
I spent 18 days in the hospital, and then when I came home, I didn't have a home nurse for the first week and a half, so I relied heavily on the teens and my sister to help me during that very difficult first week and a half.
Mark missed a lot of school during that whole time, and he started to fall behind.
He signed up for summer school and had almost completed it, just 4 days away from finishing, when he got to school just 3 minutes late one morning and the teacher would not open the door and let him in, which voided out his entire summer of classes and grades.
That put him very far behind, so his sophomore year, he was doing both sophomore and freshman classes.
It was too hard on him, he started falling way behind again.
He did summer school again, and managed to finally get his freshman courses done, but was now behind in his sophomore classes.
By the time his junior year came around, he was totally frustrated and had such a heavy course load, he gave up, he just quit working so hard and didn't want to even go to school anymore.
It was a battle every single morning to get him go, he said that it was just too much work, that he couldn't keep up with all of the classes for basically 2 years worth of classes being done in just one year.
In his senior year, they gave him 2 choices, go back to being a junior, graduate a year later but only if he could complete every single class with at least a C average, or take the exit option, which is all self motivated work on a computer, doing things called modules that allow the student to read several chapters, take a test, read, take a test, read, take a test and repeat, until every single class is done by taking tests.
Mark had 17 class credits to do this year, over 2,000 chapters to read, and over 400 tests to take in order to graduate on time with his class.

The teens hadn't even started school yet when I was given the news about the neck surgery.
I was scheduled to go in for it on September 8th, right at the beginning of his new school year.
It was not a good experience with that surgery, there were a lot of complications, I was put in a medically induced coma for 4 days after the surgery, Mark knew everything that had happened to me during the surgery, he was worried sick, he once again felt like giving up on everything because it was all just too much for him to deal with.
Trying to complete school and dealing with his mother, the only parent he has ever lived with, almost dying, he broke down a lot in the months that followed my surgery.
He's such a caring young man with a huge heart, and it was so much for him to deal with, but I just kept encouraging him, telling him that he could do it, that I knew he could do this, to not worry about me, just do his work and graduate so that he could fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer.
He buckled down, he worked his ass off, sometimes doing as many as 20 tests per day, doing some of them at home on the school's website, just really busting his ass to get them all done so he could graduate.

He took his graduation test over 7 weeks ago, we have been waiting all of this time for the test results, and we finally got them back on Monday, he passed, he will march.
That's when I found out that the cap and gown would be about $100 or so, I had no idea where I would get that money because I just had to borrow money to replace the AC, and I have 4 doctors appointments plus prescriptions to pay for this coming week, and I'm trying to like crazy to do as much work as I can even when I'm feeling like total crap.
I was SO HAPPY when he came home today and told me about the scholarship program, that the school is going to give him his cap and gown so he can march with his class.
He has a senior night bbq and gown pick up on May 19th from 6-8pm, and graduation rehearsal on May 29th, and then he graduates May 30th at 9am at Robarts Arena.

I am so incredibly proud of him for all of his hard work, overcoming all of the obstacles that he faced, for not giving up when it really would have been much easier to just drop out, when some of his teachers even told him to his face to just drop out, that he would never be able to complete everything with passing grades, he did it, he really did it, and I am just so so proud of him for doing this.
When he walked through the door today, he had a huge smile on his face as he showed me the paperwork and told me about the scholarship, he really did it, and to see him that happy and proud of himself for doing it, it made me happy.

I will be taking a TON of pictures at graduation, maybe even a little video of him getting his diploma handed to him.
It's such a big deal because of all of his hard work, I want to make sure that the graduation is well documented so he can look back on those pictures and keep on smiling, keep on being proud of himself.