I told my 29-year-old son he had two weeks to move out. No job, no effort—I thought tough love was the only way. He left quietly. A week later, I got a call from a woman named Grace: he’d been found unconscious at a train station. Severe dehydration. No food for days. My heart sank.
At the hospital, he looked pale and broken, nothing like the boy I raised. When he whispered, “You don’t have to be here,” it hit me like a punch. He admitted he had been trying—interviews, rejections, silence—but I had only seen laziness. Grace, who found him, said he had collapsed after giving his coat to an old man. Even at his lowest, he was still giving.
