The Space Between Sacrifice and Love

I am the daughter of two Jamaican immigrants. 

As a kid, I often went to bed worried we might get a phone call saying my mom had fallen asleep at the wheel on her way to or from work. She was always running on little to no sleep because she worked the night shift from 11 pm until 7 am and then a second job during the day. If she wasn’t working, she was sleeping or trying to pick up an extra shift. I still don’t know how she made it through those days, but I carried the weight of worrying about my parents—and often felt responsible for their happiness.