When I was little, I thought love was loud.
It was birthday parties with too many balloons. It was bedtime stories read in silly voices. It was my mom’s laugh drifting through the house on Sunday mornings.
What I didn’t understand back then was that sometimes the deepest love is quiet. Sometimes it’s paperwork. Court dates. Closed-door conversations. Sleepless nights.
I didn’t know that while I was grieving my mom… my stepdad was fighting a battle I never saw.
The Day Everything Changed
My mom passed away when I was seven years old.
One week I was packing my lunch for school, and the next I was sitting in a too-quiet living room while adults whispered in the kitchen. Words like custody, guardianship, and biological family floated through the house like smoke.
I didn’t understand them.
All I knew was that my mom was gone — and I was scared of losing my home too.
My stepdad had been in my life since I was three. He wasn’t there for my first steps, but he was there for my first day of kindergarten. He learned how to braid my hair (badly, at first). He showed up to every school play, even the one where I was “Tree #4.”
He never tried to replace my father.
He just showed up.
What I Didn’t Know
After my mom died, some extended family members assumed I would go live with blood relatives.
On paper, my stepdad had no legal claim to me.
He hadn’t adopted me yet. My mom and he had talked about it, but life — busy, ordinary life — kept pushing it off.
So while I was sleeping with a nightlight again and clutching one of my mom’s old sweaters, he was meeting with lawyers.
He was asking what it would take to keep me.
He was told it would be expensive. Complicated. Uncertain.
He did it anyway.
What I didn’t know was that he had to prove he was fit. Prove he was stable. Prove he could provide. Prove that loving me wasn’t enough — that he could legally justify keeping me.
He never told me how scared he was.
He never let me see the weight of it.
The Quiet Fight
Continue next Page
