Verona Grant-Brissett - photo by Nadisha Hunter

If life begins at 40, as is the mantra of the archetypal career woman, Verona Grant-Brissett strapped up to get in the game just after the opening whistle had blown.

But time has never been on her side.

A topsy-turvy life from serving as a pre-teen surrogate mother and cleaning floors to survive meant sacrificing her dreams early on. Later, Grant-Brissett was told she was too old to don her whites and become a nurse. Guess who's laughing now?

The registered midwife at the Linstead Hospital, who hails from Redwood, St Catherine, started her career at age 45. She said she was able to withstand torrents of criticism.

"I was always ready to turn down persons who tried to discourage me by saying I was too old to start nursing because I was determined that nursing was what I wanted," Grant-Brissett, now 51, told The Gleaner last Monday.

Raising siblings

The road from household helper to registered nurse was long and hard. Grant-Brissett had spent her early days putting her seven siblings through school because of the untimely deaths of her parents. After the death of her mother when Grant-Brissett was 12 years old, she took charge of domestic duties, including preparing three meals a day at the expense of her lessons.

"I wanted to put my siblings through school before I launched out, so that everyone could stand on their own and now I have no regrets," Grant-Brissett stated.

"I had to leave school to prepare lunch on wood fire, so when I get back to school my eyes would be burning, so I hardly could see or hear anything," she argued.

The onerous housekeeping forced her to abandon classes totally at Redwood All-Age School to become a full-time family caregiver.

"I have never gone to a high school but I was determined that I would make it and the Lord brought me through," she said.

Twelve years later, the challenges intensified when her father died. She got a job on a farm where she did odd jobs, ranging from being a domestic helper to caring for animals.

After some time, Grant-Brissett became fed up, deciding that menial work would distract her from her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse.

Wanted more

"I finally got through to be a community health aide at the Redwood Health Centre where I worked for seven years, but I still decided that I wanted to reach further," she said. "At every opportunity I got, I asked the nurse to show me some of the basic things there and I caught on quickly."

Grant-Brissett enrolled in evening classes at Dinthill Technical High School in St Catherine and took private lessons with tutors in her community. It was then that her dreams began to take shape.

She passed five Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate subjects, including biology with distinction. Though she wasn't sure how she would cope during the three-year nursing course, she started the journey and finished it.

"I wanted to be successful in life, so I was prepared to suck salt through a wooden spoon," she explained.

Grant-Brissett implores other Jamaicans who are emerging from humble beginnings to view their goals through the prism of faith.

"Always be determined to achieve your goals and never leave God out of the picture because without Him, nothing is possible," she said.

nadisha.hunter@gleanerjm.com