I can tell you what it was like for me to watch my mom work at the University for my entire life, and how proud I am of her.
It's a simple, personal story, but one I'd like to share all the same.
One of my earliest memories in my life, one that I can now barely piece together at 37 years of age, was of me trying to keep up with my mom as she walked me across campus to Old Main.
My mom walked fast, and I remember struggling to keep up.
She had a specific agenda for work, and to get where she needed to go on time, she needed to hustle. I was whiny and wanted her to slow down.
She insisted that I keep up.
I didn't know it or understand it then circa 1987, but later came to realize just how much the attitude she had then was a reflection of her father, James Smith, an economist who had polio, and taught her to understand the value and importance of independence.
A reflection of her mother, Mary Smith, a valedictorian and activist who taught her daughters the importance of loving people different than yourselves.
This is who my mom was: walking quickly, authoritatively, and with determination since literally the day I was born.
Someone whose entire culture and being was grounded in work.
That is how I see her as she walks away now.
But that's not exactly the only thing I've seen, and this why I'm excited to celebrate her retirement.
Work is to be valued. Whether we hear it from politicians, religious figures, wealthy businesses, entrepreneurs, sports figures or rockstars, the conversation inevitably includes some circling clichés that lead back to work, hard work, time spent etc.
From my perspective, work also created a rift between my grandparents and my mom and her two sisters.
Work, it seemed, could also create horrible divisions and keep a family unit from being all that it could.
For as much effort that my mom put into her job, for as much as she put into her career, she put just as much into loving her family.
I always felt loved like no other as she raised me, whether it be in the way she helped coach me in little league or by taking care of horses to help with my sisters horseback riding lessons. The constant driving of both my sister and me to our friends' houses that were never within walking or biking distance.
All the while, she was rising through her ranks and divisions not out of pursuit, but because she was asked.
Time and time again, my father, sister and myself would wonder if maybe she'd like to stop, settle down and retire, yet every time it seemed that Penn State was looking to move her up.
She was happy at her job, and as her son, it filled me with immense pride to see her achieve so much professionally.
She won. She had successfully raised a family while satisfying personal goals not directly tied to the family.
For 38 years, my mom has given everything she has to Penn State and her family.
She didn't do it out of sacrifice or obligation to either, she did it out of love for both.
So as her son, the one that she was pregnant with on the day she took the job, I just want her know it was all worth it, and I couldn't imagine anyone else doing or accomplishing the things she has.
There isn't another Lori Baney out there.
Love, Ben.
