On Tuesdays and Thursdays before sunrise, I’d drop a sleeping Emily at a neighbor’s, whisper an apology to her warm little ear, then trot to campus with my backpack bumping along my spine. PT was cruel at first—a body already wrecked and repaired by childbirth asked to run, climb, hold. I was always at the back of formation. But inside me lived a stubbornness my father had underestimated. When my lungs burned, I pictured that porch light and found another step.

Kindness showed up in slanted ways. The stranger with the thermos had planted something. At the diner, a retired gunnery sergeant named Walt—big hands, a knee that complained about weather—left tips in advice. “Ma’am,” he’d say (he called every woman ma’am), “always lace your boots the same way. Discipline starts where you stand.” He’d slide me a folded Post-it with tiny drills for pushups, intervals, how to tape a blister. One morning he asked, “You going ROC?” I nodded. He grunted “Good,” like a benediction. When I passed my first PT test without throwing up, I left him a slice of apple pie on the house. He tipped me five bucks and a grin that lasted all day.