I started thinking more about people like me—young individuals without fancy degrees but filled with big ideas. Not everyone can spend years grinding in the dark the way I did. And not everyone gets the chance to meet someone like Marcia Bennett at exactly the right moment.
So I decided to start the Ruby Foundation, with its first program called the Forge Forward Grant—a financial aid and mentorship fund for young founders without college degrees but with promising business plans. We didn’t ask where they studied. We only cared about what they wanted to build and why.
The fund’s announcement took place in a small auditorium at the Clearwater TechHub under the warm April sun and the scent of fresh-roasted coffee from the corner stand. I stepped onto the stage with no papers, no teleprompter—just me.
“Here are people who can craft the perfect wooden chair at sixteen,” I said to the crowd. “Others who develop content-filtering algorithms without taking a single hour of computer science. If we deny them a chance just because they don’t have the right diploma, then we’re the ones lacking.”
We received nearly five hundred applications in just the first six weeks.
Alicia Monroe, twenty-two years old, living in El Paso, Texas, was the first to receive a $20,000 grant to develop a scheduling platform for local clinics. She cried during our first video call.
“I didn’t think anyone would pick me when the education section only said ‘high school,’” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
I smiled and gently said,
“Maybe you just hadn’t met the right reviewer yet.”
Forge Forward isn’t just a fund. It’s a heartfelt response to the nineteen-year-old version of me—the one who once curled up in a 450-square-foot apartment, wishing someone would just believe in her.
One afternoon in June, while I was watering the lavender in the yard, my phone rang. The screen said Natalie. I was going to let it go to voicemail, but then I answered.
“It’s me,” she said. Her voice wasn’t sharp anymore. It was lower, slightly shaky. “How have you been?”
“I’m okay,” I replied.
The silence stretched long enough that I could hear the wind through the line.
“I’m not calling to beg,” she said. “I just wanted to say thank you for everything you’ve done. And I’m sorry—not some generic apology, a real one. I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I stepped into the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and heard my own voice shrink.
“Thanks for calling,” I said.
After that call, I didn’t throw open every door, but I started replying to messages—asking about the kids’ health, sending birthday wishes to Matthew—still from a comfortable distance.
Then one Sunday morning, I received a handwritten envelope in my Clearwater mailbox. The sender: Douglas Lawson.
The handwriting slanted left, crisp and familiar, like the essays he used to mark for his students.
“Ro,” the letter began, using the nickname he hadn’t spoken in years, “I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll be direct. I was wrong. Wrong to believe there’s only one path to success. Wrong to let pride blind me to your efforts. When you spoke the truth that night at dinner, I fell apart. Not because you did anything wrong, but because I realized I was no longer the man you needed me to be. If you don’t want to forgive me, I understand. But I hope you know I’m proud. Yeah—proud.”
I read the letter ten times over. No tears fell. But my throat tightened with something I couldn’t quite name. Maybe sadness. Maybe relief.
I didn’t call back right away. But a few days later, I mailed a postcard from Sarasota.
“Thank you for writing,” I wrote. “I’m building the life I’ve always dreamed of. If you’d like to be part of it, the only condition is respect.”
I kept my boundaries. I didn’t return to the fantasy of a perfect family I once dreamed of. But I gave them a second chance—this time on my terms.
At an informal dinner with the local women’s startup community in Tampa, I shared my story. Not dramatized, not sugar-coated, just simply.
“Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to stop trying to be loved by people who refuse to understand you,” I said.
The room fell silent for a few seconds, then erupted in applause. I realized I wasn’t just healing. I was sparking something.
One early summer afternoon, I was reading the paper on the back porch when my phone rang again. The screen read, Call from landline Salem OR. I almost let it go to voicemail like I had many times before, but something in my gut told me to answer.
A soft voice came through, carefully choosing each word.
“It’s Mom. Linda.”
I didn’t respond right away.
She took a deep breath and continued,
For complete cooking times, go to the next page or click the Open button (>), and don't forget to SHARE with your Facebook friends.
