Karena and Luis

They say parenting is the hardest job in the world. Yesterday, a man worked in our yard for 8 solid hours in the hot sun. That's hard. What's harder, though, is that he's a parent. As he sat in our kitchen eating lunch with my kids, his kids were a thousand miles away. He hasn't seen them for a year, but has their names tattooed in fancy cursive over his heart. Karena and Luis. He lights up when he tells me about them. They wait while he works, eating alone after every back-breaking day. That's tough parenting. It cost him six thousand dollars to get here, to earn enough money to feed his kids. I wish he didn't have to be here alone. I bet his wife wishes the same thing. The sacrifices this man, Thomas, has to make for his family far outweigh any that I'll ever know. So parenting can be a hard job, yes, but it has nothing to do with changing diapers, fixing meals and reading bedtime stories. Those are the easy parts. The hard parts happen in your heart, where your kids' names are tattooed, no matter who you are or how far away you have to be.
*Photograph of a migrant worker in California.