For her, a congressman flew cross-country and a president bowed. A powerful U.S. senator sent a gift and Congress issued a proclamation in her honor to commemorate yesterday, when a special graduation ceremony was held just for her.

Such is the inspirational power of Phyllis Brooks, a former carhop and Navy Wave who at age 68 and wracked with metastasized cancer earned her college diploma.

"It hasn't been a piece of cake," she admitted, frail in her cap and gown, holding up five scholarly medals earned during the 10-year pursuit of her dream.

About 50 fans came to honor her as San Diego State University President Stephen Weber, resplendent in his blue velvet trimmed ceremonial robes from the University of Notre Dame, bowed to reach her wheelchair and officially confer upon Brooks her bachelor's in political science from SDSU.

Commencement came yesterday because nobody is sure she'll be alive to graduate with her class in June.

"They tell me there'll be no more remissions for me," Brooks announced, looking unflinchingly from behind oversized owl-eyed gold spectacles. "If I wasn't sick, I'd be going on to get my master's degree and then maybe become a professor. You can never learn too much."

Inspiration and tenacity were not strong enough words to describe Brooks, said Congressman Bob Filner, D-San Diego, who came up with the idea for the special ceremony,

For nearly 20 years, Filner has known and worked closely with Brooks, a longtime official with the American Legion, on better treatment and benefits for military veterans.

"I recognized long ago that although she is a pain in the neck for some people, she has a heart of gold and wants to do right by those in need," said Filner, who blushed when told he holds the place of honor on the wall beside Brooks' hospital bed in her City Heights apartment.

Mixed in with the scores of vials of cancer drugs, Brooks has a pantheon of her favorite Democratic leaders below Filner's silver-framed photo, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"I don't know what I'd do without Bob Filner. He has done more for veterans and for me than anybody I know," said Brooks, who graduated high school early to serve in the Waves during the Korean War and worked on some of the earliest computers in the office of Navy guided weapons systems.

Now Filner may have to share top billing with another hero of Brooks', Sen. Hillary Clinton, who gave Filner a personalized photograph of herself as a gift for the newest SDSU graduate.

Phyllis Shepphard Enfinger Dozier Brooks was born into a fighting family and earned her battle scars young. She was only 6 in 1941 when coming out of church that December morning in Pearl Harbor. She and her airman father survived the "date which will live in infamy," but he did not survive the war. Her mother remarried another military man, and when Phyllis grew up, she married military men, too.

"I don't want to talk about any of the men in my life. They never did anything for me, so why should I waste time talking about them?" she said.

She hints of a hard life, living on the move, in low-paying jobs, raising three daughters. College was the moon for women of her time and situation, so why even talk about it?

When she was 60, a brochure came to her house from Southwestern College. The boyfriend who told her she was too stupid to make it there is long gone, but the academic medals she earned there and at SDSU for the top grades she achieved in her 10-year quest are real and shiny and hang proudly around her neck.

"I guess I've lived an exciting life," said Brooks, resting in her adjustable bed and gazing at the heroic images she has nailed to her wall covering every inch of space.

At the special graduation ceremony as Brooks became one of the few to have a diploma personally conferred by the university president, her academic counselor read a passage by Ralph Waldo Emerson, saying that Brooks fulfills the poet's lofty vision of success:

"To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."