For three exhausting years, the first day of every month followed the same suffocating rhythm in a house that no longer felt like home. I would sit at the small, scarred desk in my childhood bedroom and open the banking app on my phone to initiate the exact same transfer.
$3,000.00 to Mrs. Diane Thorne (Household Support).
The heavy, sickening feeling in my gut would ease for just a second when the confirmation screen popped up, only to be replaced by the crushing weight of knowing my own future was being delayed by another thirty days. It all started shortly after my father died of a sudden heart attack, leaving my mother completely paralyzed by the prospect of financial ruin.
