The Light Rose Carries
Published on Dec 3 2025The first thing you notice about Rosella “Rose” Moon is her laugh. It’s contagious, warm, inviting, the kind that belongs to a woman who has survived enough to earn every bit of the joy it carries. The second is the way her face lights up when she talks about her sons, now ages 21, 20, 8, and 2, and about her education at the College of the Redwoods Klamath Trinity Instructional Site (KT).
At eighteen, she left Hoopa for Pasadena, moving in with her grandmother and enrolling at Pasadena City College. “I went down there with a lot of excess baggage that I hadn’t dealt with,” Rose says. The excess baggage she carried eventually strained that relationship, and Rose returned to Hoopa two years later with untouched college units and a life that continued to move unpredictably: jobs, no jobs, prison stints, rebuilding, slipping, rebuilding again.
But one moment, or perhaps several moments woven together, suspended in time, sharp enough to still feel alive, is where Rose’s story truly begins. Her story doesn’t start at the beginning; it starts at the end, because that is where rebirth so often takes root. And for Rose, her story begins with her children.
Losing custody of her four-year-old son (at the time) was one of those moments. A wound sharp enough to force change.
“There was no way I was going to be whole without him back in my life.”
The battle to reunify with him changed everything. She learned to speak in meetings full of professionals “on their level,” learned to steady her emotions when she was the only person in the room advocating for herself. Healing didn’t happen all at once, but piece by piece she rebuilt through accountability, honesty, and eventually an unshakeable determination to build a life on her own terms, not the ones shaped by her past.
Two years later, she got her son back. And somewhere in the long climb toward stability, she found her purpose.
People began telling her she was intelligent, poised, capable of doing more.“So I thought, I’m not going sit here complaining about how broken the system is if I’m not willing to bring solutions to the table.”
She decided to become a social worker, specifically to work for Hoopa Tribal Social Services, to be the advocate she once needed so desperately.
Returning to school was terrifying. On her first day at CR, Rose sat waiting for her advisor, Matt McKindley, her nerves buzzing. Sitting in his office, she told him, “Do you know what I’m coming to the table with? I’m scared. I’ve got a six-month-old baby. When I’m not here, I’m full-time mom. My classes can’t overwhelm me.”
He reassured her: “You’re in the right place.”
That day was nearly two years ago. This spring, she will walk across the stage with not one but two associate degrees from College of the Redwoods. She has already been accepted to Cal Poly Humboldt, where she plans to earn her bachelor’s in social work, then a master’s degree.
Rose treats school like a job. She drops her kids off at school and Head Start, then heads straight to campus, where she studies, tutors other students, writes her papers, and keeps moving forward.
Doubt still visits sometimes. Last summer, she took two summer classes, and political science nearly broke her.
“I called Matt like, ‘Why would you do this to me?! Four chapters a week? In summer?’” she laughs. He told her she could drop the class—but also that he believed she could do it.
“Sometimes I don’t have faith in myself, but I borrow his (Matt) faith until mine kicks in.”
She earned two A’s that summer. Political science remains one of her favorite subjects.
Asked about her biggest academic success, she grins: “Honestly? Getting an A in statistics. That was crazy.”
Rose has maintained almost a perfect 4.0 grade point average at College of the Redwoods, not an easy feat for many.
Rose doesn’t brag. She doesn’t posture. She is honest, grounded, warm, and driven by something bigger than herself: becoming the advocate she didn’t have, and proving to her kids, her community, and herself that people can change.
“It’s been a long journey,” she says. “But I’m here. And I’m not done.”
When asked what success means to her, she doesn’t hesitate. “Success was when my children became proud of me. When they hugged me and said, ‘We’re proud of you, Mom.’”
But we can’t end the story there. Rose wouldn’t be where she is today without the guidance and support of Matt McKindley, her CR academic advisor and lifelong mentor; Elizabeth Leach, a professor who became a key mentor and motivator; her mother, Wendy Morton Moon; her family; and the Hoopa Valley Tribal Headstart.
Rose’s story begins with her children and ends with her children. A journey of resilience, sorrow, joy, and growth. Above all, it is the story of a mother’s unwavering love: the kind that transforms struggle into purpose and every triumph into legacy.