AMERICA | A mother and son from Florida, United States, have made history together after both earned their associate degrees from Broward College on the same daY.
Patricia Love Davis, 50, and her 25-year-old son, Kenneth McCray, faced numerous challenges on their path to graduation. In an interview with Good Morning America (GMA), they shared how setbacks like illness, unemployment, and financial instability delayed their academic dreams.
“It was so cool to be graduating with my baby. I don’t think he was as excited as I was,” Davis said. Despite the hurdles, both Patricia and Kenneth walked across the stage together, each receiving their associate degrees from Broward College in South Florida.
Kenneth expressed pride in their shared accomplishment. After high school, he had to put his education on hold to work and support the family. His mother’s academic journey was also interrupted due to health issues and job loss.
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“It was still exciting for me but probably a little bit less exciting than it was for my mom,” Keneth said. He said getting the achievement was very challenging as he was just six, when his father died from an aneurysm.
Five years later, his mother, Davis learned she had a rare form of lymphoma and started treatment. Kenneth said he felt terrified that he would loose his mother after he had seen his father hooked up to tubes and machines for life support.
Kenneth recalled finding his mother unconscious on the couch after a cancer treatment when he was 11-years-old. Confused, he thought his mom was napping, so decided to do the same. He said it was not until later he learned that his mother was actually in a coma, and his grandmother was the one who realized it and sought help.
He mentioned that after his mother finished treatment, she went into remission and has been cancer-free for 13 years. But in 2012, she lost her job state Department of Financial Services where she worked was closed down.
Because of this situation, the two lived off her savings, and in 2013, they lost their home and struggled to find a new one but landlords hesitated to accept them because they had no income.
“We stayed in a hotel for a little while and then the money ran out, We were bouncing around to friends and family,” Davis said. Kenneth stated that he began working to help his mother after high school but he remained determined to return to college, to fulfill his career dreams.
“Since I was little, I always had ideas in my head and never had the knowledge to do it. That is basically what inspired me to be a computer programmer,” he said.
Davis obtained her associate’s degree in criminal justice, an area in which she became interested when she helped investigate white-collar crime at her state job. She mentioned that while in college, they only had one class together, math.
Though Davis graduated with a better grade, it did not come easy. She had short-term memory problems, which made studying and test-taking challenging.
Kenneth stated that he will continue studying computer science,with plans to earn his bachelor’s degree. He hopes that others will look at him and his mother as an example of what is possible. “You can make it through anything. Keep doing it until you get to the end,” he said.
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