Fourteen years ago, my life changed following a devastating late night phone call from my best friend Carson. He informed me that his young wife Nora had suddenly passed away from a massive brain aneurysm. I drove to their home early the next morning and found their four year old son Callan sitting alone on the living room rug eating dry cereal. Carson was nowhere to be found, leaving behind only a short note stating that he was not built for the responsibility of parenthood. I was a twenty eight year old single man working as a Milwaukee auto mechanic for nineteen dollars an hour, completely unprepared for fatherhood. Knowing they had no other relatives available, I could not allow Callan to enter the foster care system and committed to raising him. With the generous assistance of a kind
family lawyer named Brenda, I finalized the formal legal adoption process after eleven grueling months and moved him into my modest apartment.
