Intro
Mama kept the kitchen warm on a pilot light
Three kids in winter coats, sleeping back-to-back tight
She'd count the bills on Tuesday, count the days till work
Said survival ain't a feeling, it's a kind of hurt
Verse 1
Shift work at the hospital, twelve hours on her feet
Came home and boiled water, made the nothing taste like meat
My brother's shoes had cardboard where the sole got worn
She stitched them back together every single morn
The landlord came on the first, she'd meet him at the door
With half the rent in cash and promises for more
He'd nod and mark his ledger, gave her seven extra days
She never called it favor, called it finding ways
I watched her hands go rough, the creases filled with dark
She'd scrub the hospital floors, then come home to work in the dark
My sister learned to braid hair at fourteen, made some change
Mama said that's kingdom, turning what you got to grain
We didn't speak about the future, didn't dream out loud
Just moved like water through the cracks, just kept the house proud
Chorus
This is how we made it through
When the light was almost gone
This is how we made it through
Trading sleep for getting on
Verse 2
Winter of '08, the factory shut its gates
Daddy took two jobs, came home at half past eight
Mama's sister called from out of state with extra rent
He said we got it covered, hung the phone and bent
His back in kitchens where the heat would never quit
Came home and fixed the heater with a piece of kit
He'd say a man don't measure what he's worth in what he owns
It's measured in the doors he keeps unlocked, the debts he don't condone
My cousin needed tuition, they ain't have to think
Mama took an extra shift, Daddy worked the brink
They never spoke about the sacrifice, just moved like it was law
The kind of love that don't announce itself, just cuts into your jaw
I learned the arithmetic of making nothing stretch for four
How to read the subtle language of a parent keeping score
Chorus
This is how we made it through
When the light was almost gone
This is how we made it through
Trading sleep for getting on
Verse 3
Now I'm standing where they stood, with my own small ones
Thinking about the calculus of what we've won
Not in dollars or in status, but in knowing how to bear
The weight of other people's future as a weight you wear
My daughter asked me why we save the scraps of bread
I told her 'bout her grandmother, the wisdom in her thread
How she took the smallest portion, gave the bigger share
And how that kind of practice is a kind of prayer
The gate still rattles sometimes when the wind blows hard
I think about my father in that cold and narrow yard
And how he never broke, just bent like winter wheat
How he turned the hunger into something we could eat
This is the inheritance, no deed or title clear
Just the knowledge that you live because somebody near
Believed that getting through was worth the price they'd pay
That's the iron psalm, the way we're made
Outro
