There is not a more beautiful woman in the world, in my eyes, than this stunner right here (take THAT, Kardashian sisters)!
Sandra Day O’Connor was about as bad-ass as they come. She grew up on a cattle ranch in my home state of Arizona, and as you know, went all the way to become the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court (here’s me, making bowing down gestures right now).
I have such love for this woman, because when I was a young girl growing up in Phoenix, I thought I might want to be a lawyer. So I would often head downtown to the Superior Court building to sit in on trials so I could get a glimpse of the job in real time. I tried to always be discreet as I entered the room, opening the door very slowly, just wide enough so I could slip in without being disruptive. But EVERYTIME I snuck into her courtroom she would stop the proceedings to welcome me. I remember the first time she did this. “Hi! Come on in. What’s your name?” My face turned beet red as everyone looked at me in the back of the courtroom. “Oh…um…my name is Alison. Alison Levine. And I think I want to be a lawyer.” “Welcome, Alison!” she always said with a smile. And she greeted me every time I snuck into her courtroom.
To this day, I regret not going to law school. I think I would have made a great attorney, but I decided I wanted to be an air-conditioning repairwoman instead (well, we lived in Phoenix so I figured I would always be in high demand and would have some job security). That job did no pan out, for better or for worse.
But Justice O’Connor was always a role model for me.
Although she was clearly brilliant (went to Stanford at age 16, then on to Stanford Law School), her path was not easy. Upon graduation, she could not get hired by any law firms because she was a woman, and ended up working FOR FREE initially. She was determined to prove herself and did legal research for a while and eventually earned a small salary…and then worked her way up and up and UP…and of course now she is in heaven so she can’t go any higher.
And someday in the future (hopefully not anytime soon, though), I will again sneak in to see her, and I know she will welcome me just as she did when I was a young kid…and then I will have an opportunity to tell her what an inspiring role model she was to me and to so many other people on earth.
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