Initially, I recorded a video of me interviewing my mom for this assignment. However, after about an hour of watching it over and over again, I realized that in no way did that video convey how I truly felt for my mom and all that she has done for me.

My mom raised my older sister and me on her own. Literally. Until this assignment, I never really stopped to think about what it means to be a single mom, and I wish I had done so sooner. With Mother’s Day right around the corner, it feels like the perfect time to stop and reflect on everything she has done for me.

My mom always taught me to reach for my dreams, and gave me confidence so that I would never feel inferior to anyone else. She enrolled me in any outside activity that I wanted to take part in, and never once complained about having to pay the extra fees or always having to drive and pick me up from practices. I was a competitive, club gymnast for 12 years, and let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap. Yet quitting or leaving the sport was never an option for her. If we had financial problems, my mom never let that bring me or the family down. She did extra clerical and janitorial work on Friday nights just to pay for my tuition, and never once did I thank her or let her know how much that meant to me.

When I got to high school, she pushed me to my limit, always stressing the importance of college and extra-curricular activities, but also knew when to step back and let me discover things on my own. Any leadership event, football game, multi-cultural assembly, you name it, she was there. The kids at my school used to joke that she should have her own cubicle in the school’s office. If we were running late in the morning and I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast, she’d drop me off at my class, then come back 15 minutes later and surprise me with Starbucks. If she forgot to give me cash for lunch, I almost always received a surprise check-up from her during the day, making sure I didn’t go hungry. Even though she was raising two girls with just one paycheck, I never felt as if we were suffering financially. With my mommy, the possibilities were endless. All I needed was the will.

During my junior year of high school, my mom was laid off from her job of 25 years at Bank of America. This was a tough time for us; I was busy studying for the SAT’s and enduring the infamous junior year of high school, but more importantly, my older sister became pregnant at the age of 19. Just five months into her pregnancy, my sister gave birth to my premature nephew – JJ. JJ weighed just 1 lb., 5.5 oz at birth, and for the next four months, we lived in and out of hospitals around the Bay Area, enduring seemingly unending emotional and financial hardship. At the same time, a nagging pain in my stomach forced me to the emergency room in the middle of the night, only to find out that I needed emergency appendectomy surgery. Here I was, on one end of the county, ready to go into a very unexpected surgery, and there was my older sister with my still hospitalized preemie nephew, close to a hundred miles apart. Somehow, and to this day I still don’t really know how, my mom managed to be with both of us during this rough time. I remember being really scared and didn’t know what was happening, but my mom was there to reassure me and to let me know that things would be alright.

Three years later, I am a successful college student at one of the best universities in the world – UCLA. As much as my mom emphasizes that it is my own knowledge and hard work that helped me to get here, I truly don’t know where I would be today, without her in my life. Arguments, temper tantrums, and ‘teenage’ attitudes put aside, she is and always will be, my hero.

I love you mommy, always and forever. Happy Mother’s Day!