Dad and I were wrestling right before he told me.

One minute we were laughing and tumbling the living-room. The next, I was stone-still but everything around me was spinning. Lurching. Crumbling.

I just remember thinking it must be so hard to go—he must have done something really, really wrong. I didn’t realize how easy it was.

I had friends whose parents were divorced, and friends whose parents had died. But no one I knew had a parent in prison. A fog of isolation and shame descended on us.

He’s in San Francisco, she’d say—and I know why she did. I don’t blame her. The humiliation, the stigma. We weren’t allowed to talk about it—but it was all building up inside me and I needed a release valve. I got sick, vomiting my way through fifth grade.

First we visited him in maximum; has your dad ever been stripped searched before he could say hello to you? Minimum was better. Toward the end, we were able to spend the weekend with him in a house on the grounds. It was totally awesome. Dad and I played catch. I got commissary Cherry Coke from the nice guy with long nails and a Jheri curl, and vegetables from the prison gardener—a guy in for mercy killing. We ate SPAM on vinyl placemats, a gift from my grandmother: I ate on Kentucky, my dad, Oregon.

The fog began to lift for me.

It was definitely still a struggle when he got out. The restitution was crushing. My mom lost her job when the papers reported my dad’s release; she worked like hell to find another. Dad held multiple jobs at once. But paying fines and fees on top of rent and bills and food—it was a never-ending shitshow. They worked their asses off, they borrowed money, we skimped on everything. But we just couldn’t claw our way out.

My whole existence is shaped by it, growing up with that toxic stress. I’m fastidious. I’m very, very driven to have money. Not to be rich, but to be stable. Let’s put it this way: if I were a painter or a dancer and I had the opportunity to quit my job and follow my passion—I wouldn’t do it. I will never chase a dream.

My friend once told me that I was a dandelion. Some people are orchids, she said. They’re fragile. Me? I might get mowed down, but I’m popping right back up. You can’t keep me down.

So I suppose I got something out of this. I wish my mom had that. I wish it could have meaning for her in a way that wasn’t just pain and shame. She has done amazing things in her life—but it will never be enough. She didn’t need this to happen to be a dandelion—she already was one. Now she’s dandelion in a fog.

I wish there were a way to change that.