I was born in a small neighborhood where hope was something people talked about but rarely saw. My mother used to say, "Life is hard, but one day it will respect you if you refuse to give up." At that time, I didn't understand what she meant.
My father left when I was only six years old. One morning he was there, and the next morning he was gone. No goodbye. No explanation. Just silence.
My mother became both mother and father overnight.
She sold fruits by the roadside under the hot sun every day. Sometimes she came home with a small bag of rice, sometimes with nothing. On the worst days, she would pretend she had already eaten so that my siblings and I could share the little food we had.
I remember asking her once,
"Mom, are you not hungry?"
She smiled and said,
"I ate earlier."
But later that night, I heard her stomach growling in the quiet darkness.
That was the moment I promised myself something: I would change our story one day.