The Promise I Made
Around sophomore year, something changed in me.
Maybe it was the way some kids kept making the same jokes year after year like they had run out of imagination, or maybe it was watching my dad drag himself home late at night after scrubbing floors all evening.
Whatever it was, I made a promise to myself.
One day, I was going to make him so proud that none of those comments would matter anymore.
I studied harder than I ever had before. I joined clubs. I volunteered for anything that looked good on college applications.
Dad never pushed me to do any of it.
He just watched quietly from the sidelines, smiling in that small, proud way he had whenever I showed him a test score or a project I finished.
“Look at you,” he’d say. “Out here making your old man look good.”
The Diagnosis
