Parenting usually starts with a plan. Mine started with a silent flight and a little boy no one claimed.
He appeared like a ghost—small fingers gripping my sleeve, then crawling into my lap as if he’d done it a hundred times before. The flight attendants didn’t react. Passengers pretended not to see. And I sat frozen, this unfamiliar weight against my chest, wondering why no one was panicking but me.
At baggage claim, reality hit like a punch. “You don’t own him?” the gate agent asked, her smile vanishing. Paperwork replaced panic. Jacob, age four. No trace of family. Just me, a stranger he’d inexplicably trusted.
Nights turned into weeks of social worker visits and makeshift beds. I told myself it was temporary—until the morning I found him coloring a picture of our apartment, labeling it “HOME.”
When he asked if I was his forever, the answer came easier than breathing. Sometimes family isn’t something you’re given. It’s something that finds you at 30,000 feet.
