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It is nearly 11 pm and it seems that T has finally settled into sleep in the chair. He does this every night. He still doesn't want to fall asleep alone so he curls up with a blanket in a chair while I write and he gently drifts off to sleep. When I'm done with my research and my musings, sometimes at ridiculous hours of the early morning, I guide him to his bed and cover him with his John Deere blanket as he hugs tightly to his stuffed bulldog. I kiss him on the forehead and say the same words every night. I love you my sweet boy.

These days won't last forever. I'm just starting to come to terms with that. Just two days ago we stood together in a court room and watched as the judge signed documents officially declaring T our son, through and through. He is eleven, soon to be twelve. I've missed so much already. So many nights of forehead kisses and a swollen heart from the greatness that is motherhood. For eleven years, other women watched him. Some loved him, some attempted to destroy him, some abandoned him. None of them knew him as their sweet boy, the one they would love all the days of their lives. Some days I feel like they stole those years from me. Stole them from T, really. He deserved, deserves, a forehead kiss every night past, present and future. I know that someday in the not so far away future, my son will become some other woman's husband. I pray that she will kiss him every night and that her heart will swell with the joy of being a wife, his wife. I pray that there won't be other women who hurt him, who steal time from him. I pray that he only ever encounters those who will respect him, love him, and honor him for the wonder that he is. T is a miracle really. He is an eleven year old boy and he drives me crazy and some days I wonder how I will get through to the next drifting moments of sleep. And then he lies there, his chest slowly rising and settling with each precious breath, and I remember that he is a miracle, that his life is a testament to the grace and redeeming power of our Lord and of the love that He has for us.

T can't ever get back those years that were stolen from him, from us. Yet he doesn't dwell there. He does his very best to dwell here, in this day. Regardless of how hard we've fought and how desperate I feel, there isn't a day that doesn't hold hugs and "I love yous" and the glimmer in his eyes as he relaxes into the comfort of being a member of a family that won't leave him or forsake him. I love that boy with every ounce of my being. To say that one can only love a child that comes from the womb is an outrageous lie. From the moment I laid eyes on him to the day that I pass on to be with my Father, T will be my son, my heart, my beautiful blue eyed wonder, my miracle, my sweet boy.

Learn more about this author, Kelly Winzer.
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