It is both a blessing and a curse to feel things so deeply.

I knelt to hug her. “Amigas siempre,” she whispered, her small brown arms locking around my neck as if she could keep me there forever. My seven-year-old hero. My friend. And this was goodbye.

I had no promises to offer. Not that I’d return tomorrow. Not that I’d be back next week. Not that there would be more playtime or English lessons on the roof. I wanted to stay—to do more, to give them a better life. But the truth was, they didn’t need saving. They had something stronger than circumstance. Love ran deep in the Ruiz Cruz family. Still, if I could make their lives a little easier, I would.

For three days, I lived inside the cement structure they called home, in the quiet town of Mirador. They called it home, but by most standards, it was barely shelter. The floors were packed dirt, the doors nothing more than patched-together blankets. The children ran barefoot, their feet absorbing the heat of the ground. The youngest, Melanie, had decided shirts were optional. At three years old, she was wild and defiant, sweet and unbreakable.

On my last day, I made it my mission to understand Uriel. He was 13. When I arrived, he was the quiet one, always lingering in the shadows, watching but never engaging. His eyes were soft, filled with a curiosity he seemed hesitant to indulge. And yet, I was drawn in.

The second day, I invited myself along on his tortilla run. I asked about school, his friends, whether he liked fútbol. He didn’t.

By the final hours of my visit, something had shifted. He had let me in—not with words, but with presence. He hovered nearby, playing American music and watching for my reaction. The Gorillaz. Billie Eilish. Twenty One Pilots. The familiar melodies, so out of place in that tiny house, made me feel strangely at home.

Curious, I asked to see his room. Unlike most others in the house, his had a real door. He opened it slowly, almost hesitantly. Inside, the bed was neatly made, the floor uncluttered—strikingly different from the usual chaos of adolescence. Above his bed, his backpack hung like a trophy.

I walked over to his desk, where a pile of journals lay stacked. Flipping one open, I found pages filled with intricate sketches.

“You like to draw?” I asked in Spanish.

“I love it,” he said simply.

I sat beside him, flipping through the pages as he pointed out his favorites, skipping past the more personal entries. It was clear he had things to say—things too big for words, too complex for casual conversation.

When I first stepped into their home, I never expected to leave feeling this attached—attached to the girls who called me amiga because they couldn’t pronounce my name, to the smoky scent of tortillas cooking over an open flame, to the ever-present darkness that seeped through their doorways and the resilient light that always fought back.

The Ruiz Cruz family taught me what no textbook ever could: that love is not measured in wealth or comfort. It is not something you give—it is something you share. And it costs nothing.

Because you can never put a price on family.