10/19/2025
“You’ll ruin your future,” my dad said when I told him my girlfriend’s pregnant. My dad was loud about it, but rent was louder, so I grabbed night shifts and kept my classes. Emily—then my girlfriend, later my wife—and I rented a tiny place off campus with thin walls and a secondhand crib that creaked when I rocked it. I printed notes at 2 a.m., packed bottles at 6, and pushed Lily’s stroller past freshmen yawning on the steps. A professor frowned at the stroller; I stood in the back and finished the presentation while Lily colored on my handouts. When daycare fell through, I studied in the parking lot while she slept in the backseat, and the dashboard clock blinked. On my graduation day, I held Lily in one arm and my diploma in the other; Emily cried and laughed in the same breath. Twenty years later, Emily squeezed my hand, I held flowers, and we watched Lily cross that same stage.
