Thank you, everyone, for the kind words. It took a long time to do justice to this story. I came up with the last line one day and worked backward from "The life I live is the hope he had."

It took a while to find the structure to weave in my blessed life with the man's journey and the plight of immigrants then hit that ending. I let this story simmer and worked on it in spurts. The dripping anchor line is a favorite of mine.

The original piece was closer to 2500 words and had more background about my ancestry and more scenes from my current life. I shortened it for Medium.

Thanks, Deb and The Narrative Arc, for getting it out there!

Cheers