18 July 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3168: it is an asset

Mrs. Melissa Trent finished another mental health support session and sighed … so many people in the world did not have to stay on top of the things she did, but she always tried to remember what her therapist told her.

“It is an asset, this process you are being faithful to,” Dr. Brianna Cerber said. “You are going to know how to recover, how to come out of what you are going through. Your father is a billionaire, but even he cannot buy this knowing that you will have to take into the world with you.”

On this day, Mrs. Trent went to talk with her father, Thomas Stepforth Sr., about this, and he smiled.

“Dr. Cerber is right,” he said. “There are far more assets that cannot be purchased than can be, actually. Experience and wisdom and goodwill and love: priceless.”

“So, um, why weren't we having these conversations so much earlier?” she said, and he put his arms around her with a smile as they started laughing gently.

“I'm a business man – took a while to gain experience and wisdom,” he said. “But I also leaned a lot more on your mother for all that, and you know what happened and how I had to learn.”

“Yeah, and we made it,” she said. “We all made it as a family again.”

“Your therapist is right in another way: your family is making it, daily, while you walk through this, and so your story will bring hope while you paying attention to the specific things you need to do and are doing means you can provide steps for others. This kind of asset on my side of things leads to the creation of a patent – a process – but real life in community, it is someone feeling like they can make it because someone they relate to did.”

“Is this why you are putting in so much time now with men working to restore their marriages?” she said.

“Yep – the billionaire who couldn't make it with his money but had to learn to do right has a story many men will come hear just because they don't even understand the first part. Mrs. Velma Stepforth makes no sense to them; they don't see what she insisted on beyond the money at first until I get into it.”

“This is something Mom is often saying, though: the stuff we go through fits us to be just the help someone else is going to need,” Mrs. Trent said.

“Because we become an asset to the community by deeply learning from the experiences of our lives,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Life has to be lived, and it really does help to live it with people who understand.”

“Do you think it was harder for our family because of the money?” Mrs. Trent said.

“Yes, and no,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Money is not the problem, but people's hangups about it are, and some of those hangups are our own.”

“Yeah,” Mrs. Trent said. “I wonder sometimes how Vincent Jubilee Trent just went past all this.”

“Vincent is the in-law our family needed in your generation,” Mr. Stepforth said, “because that man is grounded in a way few people I have ever met are. I remembered how to be a better husband from him, because to him, where love is, there is no object at all. Money? Time? Space? Forget about it. He is a 1 Corinthians 13 poster child!”

“I keep up my work because Vincent deserves my best,” she said. “The way that man refused to give up on his family – I can't give up either, and that helped me reconcile with you, too.”

“He is an asset in community,” Mr. Stepforth said, “but remember, Melissa: so are you. We all need you not to give up, and none of us are giving up on you.”

“And that is an asset to me that money can never buy,” Mrs. Trent said, and kissed her father's cheek.

“Of course,” he said. “That's love, Melissa.”