I was only seventeen when I made the hardest decision of my life. My baby boy was barely two months old, and I was doing everything I could to keep us afloat. One cold evening, with only three diapers left and no money for more, I opened the little wooden box under my bed—the one thing I swore I’d never touch.
Inside was my dad’s watch. He died when I was seven. I didn’t know him well, but that watch… it was the one thing of his I kept close, the one proof that he’d been real and loved me.