She was such a small woman, only 5’2”, barely a hundred pounds unless she’d eaten a big breakfast.
But she carried weight like she was built for it.
My dad used to work the warehouse job.
It paid well.
So well that apparently it made the risk of my parents' health worth it, because it was brutal.
Heavy machines, constant lifting, climbing on and off-loading platforms, fighting with old equipment that should’ve been replaceddecadesago. It broke his body long before it broke hers.
The car accident finished the rest. My father's hips and back were shattered. He’s still living with the pain. Still dealing with infections from the surgeries. Even now.
And back then, his pension wasn’t enough to keep us afloat.
So my mom stepped in.
The company did this thing called a spousal swap, where if one spouse was injured, the other could take their position to keep the income steady. They didn’t like the idea at first. She was tiny, and the job wasn’t meant for someone built like her… but she proved them wrong fast. She worked harder than the men twice her size.
I mean she had to.
No one could say anything because she kept up, even outpaced some of them. She wanted to take care of us, and that was enough for her.
But her body wasn’t built for what she forced it to do.
Back-to-back shifts.
Sometimes two 16-hour days right on top of each other.
Lifting crates heavier than she was.
Climbing steel racks.
Hauling big ass pallets.
Breathing in dust and cold warehouse air until her lungs burned.
At first… just a cough.
Then it became a rasp.
Then she started losing her breath mid-sentence. Her eyes turned red from ruptured vessels because she was coughing so hard.
And she still went back to work…everytime.
Daddy begged her to stop.
Ibegged her to stop.
But she always just smiled and said,
“We need the money. I can rest later.”
She never got the chance. Or she did depending on how you look at it.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘I can rest when I'm dead’.
A mere 3 months after I turned 13… on December 2nd…
