A story of gold
So he tells me he is and will always be blue collar. “The most I ever made was $43,000 one year and that job came and went before I had time to let my feet hit the ground.” He seems gay but has been with his wife since they were 15 years old. Her sister’s child called him Daddy since the sister passed so young, and then now calls him Uncle Daddy. She’s mixed race, but the boy is black as night. The girl was the only child he has ever held. Now she is dying of the same thing that killed her mama. Tumors have taken over her body and she’ll die. She’s not a little girl anymore, but she’s his little girl, at 33 years old.
“I’m getting off the meds for the first time in four years, the doctor asked me why and I said, because I don’t have anything making me nervous anymore.”
He looks me square in the eye and says, “When you make $33,000 a year, you don’t have far to fall so it keeps you sane.”
Amen.