Читать книгу Finding the Sun Through the Clouds - Dawnmarie Deshaies - Страница 10

Chapter 5

My First Job

I had my first job at Penny’s, a store in Norwich. It was convenient being so close to home. I would work after school. I was fifteen years old. I grew up knowing you had to work hard for your money and to never take things for granted. Seeing how all my other friends’ moms stayed home to take care of the kids would make me blue, knowing that my mother had to work so hard. She worked in a warehouse job doing screen printing by hand with other working women. I would ride my bike down to her work after school because I really loved watching all the colors spraying and splashing the yards of canvas, turning the seemingly endless rainbow barrage into the most wondrous clothing. There were so many giant rolls of fabric with thousands of different prints ready to be shipped out to clothing companies, and my mother was one of the many women who worked for hours and days creating such beautiful pieces of fabric. The designers should be lucky to have her employed, for without her, the prints would be just blank canvas.

I love my mother. She always told me how to work hard for a living even when you didn’t want to work. Her hands would be swollen from hard labor all day in an unconditioned, hot factory. The smell of paint in the air stained her hair and skin, bringing home a mixture of scents. These factories never had to air-condition, and with all the women working so hard, it made me wonder how it is that until these last few years, women are now getting the right to work in a proper workplace. When I would visit my mother at work, every one of her friends would always tell me I was going places. This beautiful regard baffled me back then because I never really imagined or knew what they meant. Having been raised by my mother primarily, I constructed my own thoughts on work ethic, and my mother was the cornerstone for that belief. Thank you, Mom, for making me realize that if I wanted something, I needed to work for it. Your persistence is a gift I still hold on to today. Even growing up with asthma, I never made an excuse for it. It was just something I had to deal with. Put a smile on your face and work hard. I learned this very early on in my life because I didn’t want to be different, so I would always smile and push through whatever was going on in my life. I just wanted to feel normal, and many years later, I learned normal isn’t always the best choice or option.