In the fall of 1985, I was holding a dream to Howard University, so that one day I could sit on a Supreme Court bench somewhere and make some just sentence.
Twenty-one years later, I am still a dreamer and be with quite a different experience to go through.
My grandma developed cancer, so I made the choice to leave the college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.
Then I got married with another dream. In 1999, we adopted (收养）our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No. 3.In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.
You can imagine how busy I became, raising four boys under the age of 8 .Our home was a complete zoo—a joyous zoo. As a result, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant talking as few as one class each term.
The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.
In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree and finally become a judge!
I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you're in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won't arrive in your life on one day. It's a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.
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