For two years, I walked my neighbor’s daughter to school every morning. She held my hand, talked nonstop, and eventually started calling me Daddy. I never corrected her—I didn’t know how. Then one morning, a man who looked just like her appeared, took her hand, and told me he had an offer that would change everything.
I met her after a night shift, crying quietly by a dumpster in her school uniform. It was daddy-daughter day, she said, and she had no one. Her mom had died, her dad was in prison, and her grandmother was too frail to walk her to school.
I offered to go with her just that once. Her face lit up. I came back the next day. And the next.
Soon it became routine. Six months later, she proudly told her class, “This is my Daddy Mike.” When I tried to correct her, her grandmother gently stopped me. So I became Daddy Mike—not legally, but in every way that mattered.
Then one morning, I found her crying on the porch with a man holding her hand. Her grandmother had passed away that night. The man—her uncle—said he didn’t want her. He offered me a choice: let her be taken away, or adopt her.
I was terrified. Too old. Too unsure. But when I looked at her, I knew.
“I’ll take her,” I said.
That night, she fell asleep holding my hand. The next morning, when the school asked who I was, I finally answered without hesitation.
“Her guardian.”
For the first time in decades, my life felt full.