I worked abroad for five years in order to buy a house for my mother. That sentence had been the fuel behind every double shift, every lonely holiday, every night I fell asleep in a rented room thousands of miles away from home.

I am Daniel Carter, and I left Ohio as I was twenty-eight, taking a construction contract in Germany that paid just enough for me to dream big.

My mom, Margaret Carter, had spent her life cleaning offices and raising me alone after my father passed away. Though she never complained, I knew how tired she was.