Amrita and I started volunteering together — tutoring high schoolers, mentoring foster kids, reviewing résumés for job seekers. Not to make up for the past, but to honor it. To understand that even the smallest act of compassion — or the smallest lack of it — can echo for years.
Six months later, we got an invitation from City Hall. Zayd was launching a program called Rebuild Roots — a project designed to help foster youth, former inmates, and struggling families find training, housing, and purpose.
Midway through his speech, he scanned the crowd and smiled.
“I want to thank two people who may not even realize how big a role they played in my story,” he said. “They were strangers once, then a memory — and now, a reminder that even small kindness can grow into something much bigger.”
He gestured toward us.
The room erupted in applause. My face burned. Amrita squeezed my hand until our fingers hurt.
I don’t think we deserved that recognition. But in that moment, I understood something powerful:
Redemption isn’t always about undoing the past. Sometimes it’s about honoring it by living differently.
A Ride That Changed Everything
Continue reading…
