That was the day she witnessed her son officially become Dr Gregory Cumberatch, as he graduated cum laude from the University of Florida with his degree in medicine.
"When I saw him up there on the stage to accept his medical degree I thanked God," fervently declares Myrna, eyes still aglow at the memory.
Her joy was not just because of her son's accomplishment, it was extra-special because many years before, Gregory's teachers at Dutch Broadway Elementary School in Long Island, New York City, had told her he was learning-disabled.
It was a pronouncement she never accepted.
Sitting in the verandah of her family home in Derricks, St James, where she is on vacation spending time with her father, retired deputy commissioner Charles Lunn, Myrna recalls her son's journey from the special-education class to the top of the class.
Along with husband Alvin, she moved to the United States of America in 1972. Sons Sean and twins Gregory and Geoffrey soon came along and the family eventually settled in the affluent, predominantly white area of Elmont, Nassau County in Long Island.
It was when Gregory was seven years old that his parents received a letter from his school telling them he was not paying enough attention in classes and would have to take remedial lessons.
His parents were not overly concerned by the request and agreed easily. Myrna says what they did not know was that Gregory was also going to be tested for learning disabilities. She says that prospect never even crossed their minds because "of the two [twins] he was the brighter".
It came as a total shock to them when they were called to a meeting at
the school with his teacher, the principal, a psychologist, and other education officials, and were informed that tests had revealed Gregory was learning-disabled.
They were told he would have to be transferred to the school's special education programme.
"I was thinking 'something is not right here'. I said I couldn't accept those results," declares Myrna passionately.
Myrna recollects that the chairman of the committee suggested to her that often "educated people had problems accepting that their children had learning disabilities".
However, she was not about to accept their decision and insisted on getting private testing herself to verify their findings. She confides she had her reasons for doing this.
First, her son told herhe was unexpectedly pulled from the canteen during his lunch hour to do the test and she suspected he did it hurriedly so he could get back to his meal.
She had even darker suspicions about why her son had been tested in the first place, something which she hedges to discuss.
"I think they had already targeted him. I hate to bring up race, but I was living in a predominantly white area . . ." she says, trailing off hesitantly.
The very next day, Myrna set about getting an appointment for Gregory to be tested at "one of the two institutions the school told her they would accept – Adelphi University.
When Gregory was tested, the results confirmed what his parents had known – far from being learning- disabled, their son was of above average intelligence.
Even 17 years later, the relief is still palpable in Myrna's voice, and in her brightened expression as she declares:
"Oh, a burden was lifted! Because, underneath, I was still thinking 'is it that I
don't want to think that Greg could have a problem?' I wanted to hear it from someone who was an expert."
As fate would have it, she could not have happened across a better expert. Though she did not know it at the time, Dr Gerald Glass was a renowned educator who created the widely-used Glass Analysis, used throughout North America to assess students.
It was only when they had a second meeting with the school officials to present them with the results of the test that she realised how highly esteemed Glass was.
"They called us in and told us 'it seems as though you were right. But tell me, who do you know to get to the great Dr Gerald Glass?'" laughs Myrna joyfully.
"The Holy Spirit worked with him too – that a man of his standing agreed to help me even though he had gone up so high in his profession [that], he no longer even did the testing anymore. But because of my emotional state, he helped me," says Myrna, fervent gratitude evident in her voice.
Since that time, Gregory has been extra-driven and in fact, his mother is convinced that the indignity of being so under-estimated fired him up to excel.
"That child has not looked back since then. You cannot give him a B-plus, he has to get an A," she laughs.
The family moved to Orlando, Florida, in 1991, and Gregory attended the West Orange High School, where he eventually graduated in the top ten of 625 students in his year and with two scholarships to the University of Florida.
Not only that, he graduated with an advanced placement that allowed him to go into the second year of university straightfrom high school.
At the University of Florida, he pursued a gruelling triple major/double minor programme before enrolling in the early-admissions Junior Honours Medical Programme.
He's presently at the Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. where he is doing his residency in neurosurgery.
His mother can't help but think how it all may never have been if they had accepted his school's decision.
"Parents accept what is told to them and feel these are educators and they must know what they're talking about. But we know our children too," says Myrna, adding:
"If we hadn't [fought], he would have given up. He would have been what they said he was."
amandalynch@nationnews.com