A Day in Court

I cried in court today.

In all my days, the thought of finding myself in a courtroom with an actual judge -- in actual black robes with an actual gavel -- would make my knees quiver.  Today, it was only my lip quivering.  I wasn't sure what to do... where to stand... what to do with my hands.  So instead, I walked up the stairs behind the judge's bench and stood behind her to take a picture.

In the picture?  My friend, Heather, and her son. 

He pressed his face against her neck, wary of the judge on her bench and weary of all of the cameras and tears.  She stood, facing a lawyer, who asked her a zillion rapid fire questions that basically boiled down to one:

"Do you choose this child forever?"

And she said yes.

So just like that, after 8 months -- ironically almost the length of a pregnancy itself -- the labor was over.  The home visits.  The paper work.  The anxiety.  The fear.  All done.

And, in the blink of an eye, the story of Marcus James Wilson, looking especially dapper in his new hat and surrounded by family and friends, officially began.

And we all said, "YES!"