I'd like to talk about my mother, who passed her driving test last year, at the age of fifty-four. We live in Rajshahi, in Bangladesh, and she'd never driven before because, when she was young, it wasn't considered necessary for women in our family.
The idea started when my father had a knee operation and couldn't drive for months. My mother suddenly found herself depending on rickshaws and relatives to get to her job at a school, and she decided she'd had enough. She signed up for lessons secretly, and only told us when she'd booked the test. She practised early in the morning, before the roads got busy, with an instructor who was younger than me. Some relatives were quite discouraging and said she was too old to learn, which, honestly, only made her more determined.
The test was on a hot morning at the licensing centre. I waited outside with my father, and when she came out, she didn't say anything; she just held up the paper and burst out laughing. That was the moment I felt the proudest I've ever been of anyone.
I felt proud for several reasons. Partly it was her courage, because learning something new in your fifties, in front of people who doubt you, is far harder than doing it at eighteen. Partly it was what it meant for her independence; now she drives herself to work and visits her sister whenever she likes. But mostly I think it was because she showed me that it's never too late to change your life. Whenever I feel I've left something too late, I think of her.