When I was accepted into college, all I truly owned was a thin envelope bearing my name and a fragile dream of escaping a life that felt permanently trapped in survival mode. Poverty wasn’t an abstract idea to me; it was the smell of instant noodles eaten too many days in a row, the embarrassment of worn-out shoes during flag ceremonies, the way neighbors noticed when we cooked meat because it happened so rarely. My mother died when I was ten, leaving behind silence and questions no child should have to carry.

My biological father had disappeared long before that, leaving no memories worth holding onto. The man who took me in afterward was not related to me by blood. He was an old friend of my mother, a tricycle driver who rented a tiny, rusted room near the river where the air smelled of damp concrete and diesel. He had nothing to gain by keeping me. He could have walked away. Instead, he chose to shoulder the responsibility of raising a grieving child while barely surviving himself. He worked long hours under the sun, pedaling passengers through flooded streets and traffic jams, coming home exhausted and sunburned. He never complained.