Another lesson I’ve learned? Life doesn’t always care what you have planned. Sometimes it pulls the rug out from under you and takes one of your parents with it, leaving you and your only living parent under a mountain of medical debt, your savings ravaged, and with zero viable options on how to dig your way out. So you and your mom pick up where she and your dad left off. You take the used food truck your dad bought because it was his and your mom’s dream to run their own food truck in Maui during their retirement. You put the only professional skills you honed—your cooking and restaurant skills—into fulfilling your dad’s last wish. You put your heart and soul into that food truck, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.

I silently recite my other checklist, the one I mentally skim in my head each day, whenever I need a reminder of why I’m here and why all the struggle is worth it. It’s the one checklist I’m eternally grateful for.

My mom is alive. Check.

I get to see her every day. Check.

Even when I mess up, I’m fulfilling the promise I made to my dad. Check.

I focus, crossing my fingers around my grip on the steering wheel, hoping for a good day. I hope I sell out during today’s lunch service. I hope that weird grinding noise that emanates from this rickety truck is just a fluke, and not a sign that I need to replace the brake pads, something I can’t afford. And I hope the gas in the tank is enough to last me until the end of the week, because I can’t afford that either.

With every new concern that hits this mental checklist, worry bleeds into my gratitude. I sigh, gazing out my window at endless palm trees and sand, homing in on the soothing crash of the waves. At least I can count on the stunning beauty of Maui to put me in a pleasant mood most days. My heartbeat slows, my jaw relaxes, and my hands loosen around the steering wheel.

Soon the road transitions from smooth pavement to pockmarked concrete. I pull into that perfect semicircle of dirt overlooking the ocean that I just happened to stumble upon back in December. Once again, I’m grateful. For the last three months, this has been Tiva’s Filipina Kusina’s go-to parking spot. Because of that, we have a steady flow of customers from Big Beach, which means a reliable income most days. Which means we’re that much closer to being out of the hole.