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He worked long hours, but no matter how tired he was, he always made time for me. He packed my lunches every morning, even leaving little notes inside my lunchbox. On Sundays, he made pancakes shaped like animals, even though they never quite looked the way he intended. When I was little and wanted fancy hairstyles like the other girls, he sat down with his phone and learned how to braid hair from YouTube videos.
They weren’t perfect braids, but to me they were beautiful.
My dad worked as a school janitor. Some people looked down on that job, but I never did. He took pride in his work. He always told me, “No job is small if it helps people.”
Every morning he put on one of his many button-down shirts and went to work. His closet was full of them — blue ones, striped ones, white ones that had faded over time.
We used to joke that he owned more work shirts than anyone else in the world.
Then last year, everything changed.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer.
At first, he tried to stay strong for me. He kept working as long as he could, pretending everything was normal. But slowly, the illness took its toll. The hospital visits became more frequent. The treatments became harder.