During my junior year of high school, my dad married the woman he had once cheated on my mom with. As a moody teenager, I wasn’t exactly welcoming, and I treated her pretty coldly whenever we crossed paths. A year later, when my dad was driving me to the airport for college, she left work early just to be there, surprising me

with a care package. She hugged me, told me how proud she was, and I noticed tears in her eyes. In that moment, I realized she wasn’t a bad person, even if she and my dad had made mistakes. From then on, our relationship changed for the better—today, I consider her like a second mom.