A Father's Confession

I put my daughter to bed for the first time tonight.

While Emjay has been with us for nearly a year now, and while I have put her to bed countless times over this past year, tonight was different. I didn't know it would be different -- after all she's been our "daughter" all along, right? But apparently something beyond expectation (and beyond explanation) happened today when the courts legally pronounced Fuego and I Emjay's parents and made us a "forever" family.

Tonight, at home, our house seemed more permanent. There was a peace in the air that, I think, all of us could feel. Emjay can never again be claimed by someone else and taken away from us -- we are her parents and she is our daughter. For better or worse, we are a real, permanent family -- forever.

So although Fuego and I have said all along that Emjay is our daughter, the horrible unspoken reality that she was a ward of the court, placed into our care "temporarily," has been a truth that has kept me guarded for almost a year. Every time I have comforted her, fed her, changed her, spent time with her, and risked loving her in the hope that someday she would truly be my daughter, a part of me held back. I don't think I really knew or understood that until tonight.

Tonight, with a simple piece of paper in our possession that says unequivocally that I am Emjay's father and Fuego is her mother, I truly felt it in my heart for the first time that Emjay is my real and true daughter.

Thus, through new eyes, I put my daughter to bed for the first time tonight. No longer guarded, no longer holding anything back. A real father putting his real daughter to bed -- just like every other real family gets to do.

Ya... I could get used to this =o)