"This is my calling"

After 30 years, mother of four returns to school to pursue dream career of nursing

Aged.

Stressed.

Unfulfilled.

Unhappy.

That’s the person Ruby Scarpitti saw staring back from the mirror. Nearly four decades earlier, she wanted to become a doctor. On this night, she just wanted a break. She needed one even more.

Ruby had been working 13-hour shifts as an insurance agent. During the COVID period, her weeks would often surpass the 90-hour mark.

“It was a mess. I woke up miserable and I went to bed miserable,” she recalled. “It felt like Groundhog Day.”

She was 48 at the time. The baby she birthed during her senior year of high school was now a woman of 31. She also was caring for three younger children from an abusive marriage she escaped from. But this time, there was nowhere to run.

“I kept going back. What else was I going to do?”

As part of her job, she picked up the phone again and again. One day, she envisioned the precocious little girl she once was on the other end of the line.

It was time to answer her calling.

No matter what it would take, no matter what sacrifices she would need to make, the decision was final.

“I told my boyfriend Brent, ‘I really want to be a nurse. He said, ‘I think you would be a great one.” ’

A RECURRING DREAM

Ruby remembers her childhood friends playing with Barbie and Ken. She preferred to play “doctor.”

As the elementary years morphed into middle school and then high school, Ruby remained steadfast. “The plan was to go on to med school. That was my focus. I didn’t really have friends in high school. I was dorky. But that’s all I wanted. I studied and studied. And then I got a surprise.”

A sweet surprise, but a life-changing one nonetheless. Just two months before graduating, Ruby delivered a beautiful baby girl.

“It was like, ‘What do you do now?’ I kept thinking, ‘My life is over. My life is over.’ ”

The years began to pass by. She tried community college. She got married and gave birth to three more children. She got divorced. So now, with a growing family in front of her and a failed marriage behind her, Ruby entered the insurance industry — not exactly her dream career.

After many nights of crying herself to sleep, she confessed to Brent: The dream of becoming a nurse was still alive.

The only problem: She would have to move from the high-paying insurance job to virtually no money as a medical assistant. Again, Brent proved to be an encouraging voice.

“Will you gain experience? Will this take you where you want to go?” he asked her.

Ruby nodded yes.

“Then I’m beside you.”

Initially, she attempted to enter the nursing program at the University of Texas, located just a few minutes from her home in Austin. She was told the credits she had earned three decades earlier were now outdated. So she opened her laptop and searched for “nursing prerequisites,” which eventually pointed her to Portage Learning. Ruby would share her story with John Mohrbacher, who serves as scholarship coordinator for Portage. She was hoping to receive help to pay for her schooling, and John wasted little time in delivering the good news.

“I realized right away she was someone who overcame obstacles and setbacks in her life,” John pointed out. “Her story really resonated with me. All these years later, she still felt this calling on her life and nothing was going to stop her.”

He smiled.

“Ruby’s a rock star.”

‘WE CAN DO THIS’

“She was a hard-working and determined student,” said Professor Rebekah Stepp, who taught Ruby in her Essential Microbiology course. “Her comments were genuine and passionate, and she asked good questions. I think she’ll make an excellent, compassionate nurse.”

After moving through five other courses with Portage Learning, Ruby applied for the nursing program at Fairfield University, which has a satellite campus in Austin. Following a period of nervous anticipation, she got the news.

“I didn’t really believe it. I received the email from Fairfield, and then I called Brent. ‘I got in!’ And he’s like, ‘What?’ Are you kidding?’ It was surreal.”

And then another thought occurred.

“Oh, man. Now this means I have to go to nursing school. Am I ready? Am I sure?”

Ruby is outgoing and curious, so she was fine with entering a new situation. She’s also an excellent student, so it wasn’t the coursework either. Her biggest concern was the age gap — she would be 30 years older than most of her classmates. It turned out her fears were unfounded.

“I was really worried about not being welcome, not being able to keep up,” she admitted. “But they’re supportive and everybody embraced everybody immediately and came together. I hadn’t really experienced that before. I love the community. We’re all for one common goal.”

Her schedule can be grueling. Between coursework and studying, Ruby devotes about 50 hours a week to nursing school.

“It’s a lot more stress. It’s a lot more worry,” she conceded. “But we can do this, right? We’re going to slide into home base. Somehow, some way, we’re getting it done.”

A BRIGHT FUTURE

Time isn’t the only sacrifice Ruby and her children are making.

“We don’t take vacations. We don’t do anything extravagant. I haven’t had a new pair of shoes or pants in two years. We can’t buy new school clothes for the kids.”

Ruby is grateful for the commitment she’s gotten from Brent — both emotionally and financially — even though their relationship wasn’t exactly a committed one when she decided to return to school.

“We had just been dating. We weren’t engaged. We weren’t married. Just boyfriend and girlfriend. And I went to him and asked, “Do you think you can cover us? Do you think you can cover our bills and the kids’ bills? Not just buy the pizza tonight. Do you think you can put your dreams on hold while we do this?”

And with every completed assignment, with every successful exam, Ruby is one step closer to her dream. Though she’s undecided about which direction her career will take, she’s passionate about both bringing life into the world and comforting those near death.

“I’ve always wanted to be in labor and delivery. That’s magic. When you see the expression of the mother, it’s unlikely you’ll see that anywhere else,” Ruby said, smiling. “But then I was talking to my advisor and she asked, ‘Have you ever thought about being a hospice nurse? I think you would be amazing.’ She said to just think about it. And now I keep thinking about it.”

Ironic, isn’t it? Welcoming a child and saying goodbye to a loved one both involve intense pain — something Ruby is quite familiar with. She wiped the tears from her eyes and asked for a moment to collect herself.

“Life has been painful in so many ways. But I have to believe that everything that made it a bad life will make it a good life. I wish I didn’t have to go through those things, but if I didn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be here.”

And future patients would miss out on the hope and healing she’ll deliver in her role.

“What you were, where you came from, doesn’t have to define where you are. It can just be a part. And you can change that.”

Ruby is living proof.