The architecture of a human life is often built upon the foundations of what others discard. For eighteen years, my world was defined by the industrial scents of diesel exhaust, industrial bleach, and the cloying sweetness of rotting organic matter. My mother did not set out to spend her life clinging to the back of a sanitation truck at four in the morning. She was a nursing student with a bright future, a loving husband, and a modest apartment that felt like the beginning of a long, happy story. But stories can be rewritten in an instant. When my father’s...
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