I never imagined a flat tire on a snowy Thanksgiving highway would become the invisible hinge on which my entire future would turn.
At the time, it felt like nothing more than a small act of decency — an inconvenient pause on a long drive, the kind of thing you do simply because someone is stranded and you hope the same kindness would be offered to you.
Back then, life for me and my seven-year-old daughter, Emma, was a fragile little universe of two. Her mother had walked out years earlier, leaving behind…
