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He’d not said anything—about getting into Harvard to any of his classmates, simply because he didn’t know, what with his father losing his job, whether that dream was still achievable. And then he’d gone on winter break, not wanting to talk to anybody at school as moving back into the home with all the memories of his mother only made things worse.
“Come on, Jamal. Don’t give up on that dream,” his father said. “You worked hard for it.”
“Don’t you know how hard you work doesn’t matter?” he’d said, only to feel as if he’d been proved wrong. The more he thought about it, even if his father hadn’t gotten his job back, he would have found a way, as his father’s entire life was built upon working hard for everything he got. Of course, it had been momentarily taken away, but his father put his heart and soul into getting the new station up and running, but there was this feeling that, as his father’s son, he could also have found a way to make it work, to make his dreams come true. Because of the hard work—it can pay off, but he was already thinking of what kind of degree he could get that would allow him to give back to the community in some way.