Work wasn’t just labor.

Work wasn’t just labor. Work was absence.

My mom worked nights. My dad worked long hours. My grandparents filled the gaps. The house often felt like a relay race where I was the baton.

I didn’t resent it. But I noticed it.

I noticed who was gone. I noticed who was tired. I noticed how work ate time.

Later, when I mourned losing long afternoons with my own son, I realized this was an old pattern repeating itself — a cycle inherited not from genetics but from economics.

Work gives and takes. Mostly it takes.