…
He stayed home.
He took care of his mother.
He got the first job he could find, which happened to be mopping floors, and somewhere between youth and middle age, mopping floors became what he did and who he was.
By 2003, Walter had been a janitor for 17 years.
And he had made peace with it.
That’s the part people who’ve never been poor don’t understand, the making peace with it.
It’s not giving up.
It’s not defeat.
It’s something quieter and more complicated than that.
It’s looking at
