“It was reverence. It was grace. It was beauty. I wondered if this meant I could finally breathe. Like I had found my place in this world I didn’t understand. Embroidered. Red. White. Blue. Two letters, stitched perfectly. Ox, the work shirt read. Like I mattered. Like I meant something. Like I was important. Men don’t cry. My daddy taught me that. Men don’t cry because they don’t have time to cry. I must not have been a man yet because I cried. I bowed my head and cried.”
