Work

You only have one life to live.  We are all here one time, and to wake up every day is a blessing.  Some people don't wake up.  Some people wake up and they don’t have legs so they can’t go anywhere, or their legs don’t work.  Or they wake up and they don’t have heat.  I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s from living in Ghana with no lights and no running water, and some things become important to you versus other things.  So, I’m very grateful.  I’m very, very blessed.

That trip was quite interesting in some ways. I thought it was very exciting being almost 11 years old. We got onto a ship in Shanghai, the SS General Gordon. And we were on third class, so we had – were not in the greatest of places. But, we landed in San Francisco. The trip over was like I said, interesting because we stopped in three different places – we stopped in two different places. We stopped in Yokohama, Japan and we stopped in Hawaii and then we landed at San Francisco. And we went to Worcester due to the fact that there were –some of the churches in the Worcester area were, at that point, getting involved in trying to sponsor people and the people that- in, it was I think a Baptist church-the family that decided to sponsor us were here in Worcester. And when we got to San Francisco we got a ticket on a train and went all the way across the country from San Francisco to Chicago, from Chicago to Worcester.

Women are very strong individuals. We’re not necessarily strong in strength, but we show our strength in other places. We are very compassionate and we are strong in that aspect. I am very compassionate about my job, I’m very passionate about my job and in my job I show compassion.

When I helped produce a film a couple years ago I realized we don’t have any equipment or anything here. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our own little studio. Well now it’s – my own little studio has grown into – we’re building up the roof on this, it’ll be the second largest film studio in the country. it’s a big film studio! It’s a pretty impressive space, I’ve tried to align myself with some folks, we’re trying to make this happen. We’ve already raised a significant amount, but we’re hoping to raise a good deal more and build it out the right way. And I – we do believe the films will come.

I mean the fire was really something. It’s hard even explaining what it was like to people who weren’t here then. I feel like everyone was kind of connected to that in some way, you know. One of the families grew up around the corner from us so we went to grammar school with them. I mean it was pretty significant. I can’t think of anything on that same level. So it was [December 3, 1999] I believe and it was at night. I was at home, but my younger sister was at the Auburn Mall with her friends. And my mom had, was driving out to pick her up kind of at the beginning of all of this before they started shutting down the streets. On their way home they were redirected, they had to go a different way but on her way out to the Auburn Mall she took [Route] 290 like how you would just normally go to get out to the Auburn Mall. And she said that the heat coming off of that building, even on the far side of 290, she said it was so hot coming in the side of her car that she thought the window would burst. And at that time we, no one, I mean it wasn’t quite on the news it was kind of like, “Oh there’s a fire in Worcester.” You know, those kind of stories are on the news all the time, no one was really thinking anything of it. But I mean, parts of 290 and roads were closed for weeks.  It was really massive. I mean the building that came down was…I mean it was huge. And it’s weird kind of now to think about like now I just drive by. I mean I drive on that road every day. I drive on 290 every day to get to work. But it’s funny to think, “Oh my God, for half of my life I drove by a building that just doesn’t exist anymore and took six people’s lives and changed their families’ lives forever.” You know, I mean that’s pretty significant.

My father  was the one who prepared me for college. He, from the time I was in the fourth grade and he realized that I had skills for academics, took me out – I’m sorry I’m crying – and purchased a  desk for me. And we didn’t have a lot of money, but he went out and bought me a brand new desk that I picked out because being a student was my only job. Excuse me, he encouraged me to look at Smith College. I wasn’t looking at any other single-sex schools and he asked me to look at Smith College and took me around to all my college interviews and helped me prepare the tape, my audition tape, for all the schools. He’s the one [who] went out and bought the equipment to be able to make a recording, I recorded a Mozart concerto and I played the flute part and then I learned the piano part which was condensed for an orchestra score and he recorded both parts. So, I accompanied myself on this audition tape. So my father was a huge contributor.

When you are comfortable you are not learning and you are not pushing yourself.  So sometimes you’ll be offered an opportunity, and I think women do this, they say, “Oh my God, I couldn’t possibly do that,” because I think we underestimate what we can do.  And so what I would say to you is, “Do it.  Put yourself outside of your comfort zone and give it a try.

That was the challenge. Sleep deprived; didn’t have computers back then, so I typed everything out on a word processor, so I used my secretarial skills. The challenges were working full time, raising a family, having three children, my husband at the time was just new to the police force, so he was working nights, and just trying to balance everything. It was a struggle, but – so I guess from undergrad to law school because I went straight through, it took me ten years; and anything worth having…you have, you fight for it, so that’s what I try to instill in my own daughters. But to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have the energy to do all that. 

I found my fit, you know, and not everybody gets to find that.  God, you talk to people and they’re in jobs – they hate these jobs, they’re miserable, or they’re in three different jobs or you know? And I’m so, I’m so lucky that I’ve found it. I’m very happy.

If you look back on your life when you are 70 years old you will probably say you had it all, but you didn’t have it all at once.