Two years ago, I watched as my mother ironed my clothes on the frayed wooden floors of our home in Queens in preparation for my first day as a summer associate at a Biglaw firm. I hadn’t realized that the only professional suit I owned was badly wrinkled from my travels between Boston and New York. Frustrated with the slow pace and sloppiness of my handiwork, my mom–like any other impatient mom watching her daughter panic over clothes–took over. She used the floor in lieu of our lack of a proper ironing board, wielding the same iron that we’ve had since we immigrated to the United States 20 years ago. Her wizened hands smoothed out the creases in my blazer, and I wondered how much time had passed while I hadn’t even noticed that my mom had grown old in the years she waited for me to achieve my dream.