By the time I turned eighteen, I could trace my childhood through scent alone—diesel fumes, bleach, and the sour tang of old trash bags. My world was shaped by a woman in a neon vest who climbed onto the back of a garbage truck before dawn.
My mom once imagined a different life. She’d been a nursing student with a husband who came home tired but smiling. But when my father fell from a construction site, her future collapsed with him. Overnight she became a widow with unpaid bills and a baby she didn’t yet know how to raise alone. The sanitation department was the only door that opened. She walked through it without looking back. Continue reading…
