My Daughter Cut Ties with Me After She Married a Rich Man – a Year Later, She Came Back Crying with a Baby

She cried all night for what felt like forever. We took turns walking the floor. We sang off-key lullabies.

We were tired, broke, and so, so happy.

My wife was a natural.

She knew how to swaddle, how to calm, how to make Gillian laugh.

Then she got sick.

Cancer didn’t care that our daughter was eight.

Didn’t care that my wife was kind. Didn’t care that we’d already lost so much.

We fought. Chemo.

Hospital stays. Sleepless nights.

And then one day the doctor called us into a small room and spoke softly. And there was nothing left to fight.

After my wife died, everything went quiet.

I went back to work the following Monday.

I had no choice.

Bills still needed paying.

Food still needed buying. Gillian still needed a dad.

I picked up a second job as a janitor.

Day job fixing things. Night job cleaning offices.

I emptied other people’s trash while thinking about how to keep my kid’s life from falling apart.

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